“Experiential ecology”, let’s experience the Climate Emergency Museum
“Experiential ecology”, let’s experience the Climate Emergency Museum
On Monday 13 January, at the Story Room, the first creative expedition of the year dedicated to experiential ecology took place. Scenary started 2020 by sharing a committed action!
Happy New Year 2050!
“This Monday 13th January, I had an appointment at the Story Room to discover the Climate Emergency Museum [1].
After passing the ephemeral showcase, the guide took the floor to immerse us in an exemplary vision of 2050: “Happy New Year 2050! As you know, the IPCC report of 2049 has just come down and incredible but true, we have managed to lower the 2-degree curve and thus displace the disaster scenario that was intended for us 30 years ago. What a transformation! We invite you to relive for two hours the emblematic moments and images of 2020–2022. The evening will be punctuated by six 20-minute beats, which will take up the 6x4 months of the years 2020–2022.
Two tickets are available. We walk in the footsteps of our predecessors to understand their choices. Which paths did they follow? In 2020, were they Opportunists or Utopians? How did they manage to align climate and economic issues? How did they understand that utopia had changed sides?
From then on, two groups were formed and made up the two teams for the game before us: causes and consequences of the climate [2]. We have to place the maps of the 7 steps in the right order and validate them to move on to the next step.
Once we have passed the entrance, we discover the main room of the museum. We come face to face with life-size silhouettes in a moment of meeting, they mask their ears, eyes and mouth. It’s true, the professional world of the time didn’t want to face reality or commit to the decisions to be taken. How unreasonable they were at the time!
One reads successively the quotes of the climatosceptics of the time, indeed the words of this politician had marked me: “The concept of global warming was invented by the Chinese to make American industry less competitive” (Donald Trump) or “You have to be arrogant to think that it is man who has changed the climate” (Nicolas Sarkozy). The last one brings a smile to my face, the humour of an economist from Vale: “Skiing on snow is going to suffer but water skiing is going to benefit”.
The guide invites us to slip under a bell, and one by one, we discover the data of the time on ecology, they make us blush:
- A French child was born in 2020 with a carbon budget equal to a third of a person born in 2050.
- In 2020, China accounted for 30% of the world’s CO2 emissions.
- Between 2009 and 2019 67% of plants had disappeared from the Earth’s surface.
“How could we take ascendancy on the planet?” resounds in me.
The visit continues in front of “The energy drain valve, a metaphor of the era that tipped fleeting mentalities towards action. Before 2020, it was thought that truth resided in individual actions (eco-gestures only represented 10% of the levers of action). In 2020, we became aware that our industries and communities were the real actors of change. Our climate tap was overflowing and the only people who could significantly slow down the flow of the carbon footprint were our leaders and top managers. Yet companies and institutions had 80% of the decarbonisation tools (industry, agriculture, freight, utilities and energy) at their disposal that could be quickly activated and personalised to lower the 2 degree curve.
We are following up with another image, for the very real and saddening blow, our landscapes in 2020. We discover that the 6th continent, that of waste generated by humanity, was not a distant reality for 50% of the population. This landscape of rubbish reminds me of my memories of walks 30 years ago.
We end with a discussion about the impacting initiatives of the time. We are in front of an annotated wall of these initiatives, like a grimoire of change, highlighting the solutions that, once implemented, had reduced the carbon footprint considerably.
To desaturate the tap, Sublime énergie transformed compost and our excrement into bio-methanized fuel through a revolutionary system of liquefaction/compression of biogas into biomethane and bioCO2.
The guide calls on us to contribute: “In 2020, in your opinion, what solutions have made a difference? We bounce back on the various proposals of the various parties. Are evoked:
“Siemens had integrated young activists into their board of directors after suffering their indignation following the company’s participation in a gigantic coal mine project in Australia” — launches a participant …
This was an excerpt from the Museum of Climate Emergency that we want to deploy on 150 m2 in June 2020 in the context of Lille Capitale du Design. The objective of this Museum-test was to have Scénary test the experimental route and identify live reactions to improve our proposal.
After the first two twenty minutes, we continued with a presentation of the real challenges to be met, such as the decarbonation of industry, agriculture, freight and public services. This was the subject of the two creative twenty-minute sessions that followed.
“Thank you very much for this experience, I found your narrative bias throughout the introductory part to be striking, and deserves to be further amplified to enhance the immersion. The use of playlets, and thus the movement of solutions, is also striking :)”
- Laurène Job, Hormétiss
What if we reconcile economics and ecology?
Today, we seem to be pitting economy and ecology against each other. However, if we turn to theoretical definitions, these terms are very closely linked. According to the CNRTL, Christianity, defined as the art of getting rich and acquiring wealth, is opposed to ecology, which is defined as the sciences for leading the home or community of living beings.
Indeed, economy, defined as the rules for leading the home or community, works with ecology. In both cases, we are talking about inhabiting the planet in symbiosis with the living beings that occupy it. They must be reconciled.
Tomorrow’s world depends on the experiences of our companies today.
1_ Targeting the right speeches
Under the magnifying glass of experiential design, 3 forms of discourse on ecology appear: didactic and political ecology, sensitive ecology and experiential ecology.
Didactic and political ecology: that which is demonstrated by numbers to help understand scientific phenomena and which is the subject of many reports such as the IPCC. The alarmists take it over, opting for deliberately disturbing editorial forms in the headings. For example, Fred Vargas’ “Humanity in Peril” or “Progress Killed Me: Their Ecology and Ours” of the Decline…
Sensitive ecology: it is the artists’ use of the poetic and the sensitive that leaves room for a free interpretation of the experimenter. For example, the installation “Solastalgia” proposed since December 2019 at the Champs Libres in Rennes, plunges visitors into a mysterious future, on the surface of an inert and depopulated land using augmented reality. We see ghosts telling their memories of a time when the planet had not yet declined. The message is sensitive and yet too vague to concern those who hold the levers to overcome climate change. The same goes for the NGO WWF, which hijacks well-known paintings to raise awareness of climate change. The contemplative image raises awareness but does not commit to action.
Experiential ecology: this is the use of experiential design media (empathic, inclusive, embodied) to break free from indifference and take action. There is a strong opportunity to use anger and sensitivity as a driving force for action. What if creation seized ecology to mobilize a “We are the climate” as well as an “I am Charlie”?
2_ Targeting the right actors
Citizens hold 10% of the levers for action [3], this concerns eco-gestures such as reducing plastic consumption, putting appliances on standby, carpooling, or even making your garden pesticide-free by opting to make your house insect-free (shelter that promotes local biodiversity by attracting insects beneficial to the garden). For the individual investment, which mainly concerns house renovations, we are allocated an additional 10%.
As for the 80% of the remaining share levers, they are held by companies and communities. Succession of meetings, awareness-raising speeches, environmental laws, communities and companies remain pragmatic. Why rush their organization for a change that does not seem profitable? It would involve radically changing their process, recreating a common vision and making an effort to align stakeholders. They don’t see the opportunity for change and continue to ask “Where are the oil wells?”
3_ Targeting the right tools: why a Climate Emergency Museum?
In 2016, La Poste Group used experiential design to convince managers of the opportunity for innovation at the Lab Postal. This two-day event brought together the Top Managers of La Poste around a visit, action, then decision format. The system generated the energy needed to decide to sign the project to build 4 innovation sites in 3 months for the group.
To provide an experience for managers to put them in an empathic position that leads to action.
The Climate Emergency Museum actually consists of an experiment scenario in 4 stages. It aims to put leaders in an empathetic, pragmatic and opportunistic posture.
The MUC (Climate Emergency Museum):
1/ I feel the urgency during an immersive journey → The experience begins with an immersive experiential journey (key stage of experience design to raise awareness, put in emulation then engage the experimenters) as told in the extract.
2/ I discover the initiatives of other actors → The visit continues with an exhibition of existing solutions from current actors by theme: energy consumption, deforestation, …
Then the FUC (Fusée de l’Urgence Climatique):
3/ I identify the opportunities for me to change → On a ground video-mapping, leaders position their bodies to select the challenges to be taken up according to their issues.
4/ I imagine alternative solutions → Thanks to the methodologies of experiential design, the Climate Action Room uses the Climate Action Room to explore the levers for action, in particular the emancipation of individual and commercial thermal vehicles, the reduction of heating in buildings using fuel oil and gas, the end of air travel, etc… In order to tangibilize the future, the resources to be mobilized and the moments of action, the FUC allows to elaborate the Climate Action Model.
This is our challenge: to imagine a sensitive, emotional, educational and mobilizing device to target the real stakes and the right actors in order to propose an inclusive format for decision making!
You too, help bring this beautiful project to life, and help launch the first experiential ecology format! There are four options for this:
- I am a COMEX/CODIR participant
- I am a participant and a relay in my company of what I have experienced.
- I am a Sponsor
- I’m hosting the event
Make your choice and contact us at the following address: hello@choregraphy.co
We thank the participants for their involvement and contribution and look forward to seeing you at the MUC as soon as it opens in June!
What is a “creative expedition”?
It is a sectoral or social theme introduced by a guest of honour:
6:30pm-7:00pm: experiential guided tour (for newcomers)
19h00–19h05: presentation of the community
19h05–19h20: presentation of the theme, tools, and inspiring story of the guest of honour
19h20–20h00: 2 creative sessions
20h00–20h40 : 1 choreographic preparation + sketch
20h40–21h00: conclusion and surprise for the winning team
21h00- ++ : friendship drink
1] Inspired by the Museum of Street Harassment,
2] Inspired by the Climate Fresco Workshop, https://fresqueduclimat.org.
3] Study by the French climate consulting firm Carbone 4 of June 2019
