Atmospheres of the Anthropocene. Sensing and rerouting dis/inheritances in a university museum with young people

Abstract

This paper follows young people’s shifting sense of inheritance in the context of the environmental and ontological crises of the epoch named the Anthropocene. It discusses a research project in which young people were invited to work critically and creatively with a British university museum to explore its storerooms and exhibits. The ethnographic and artistic engagements led to the curation of a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ within the museum itself. We use the concept of atmosphere to examine the ways in which space, time, and affect entangle with museological practices of curiosity, care, and curation to produce particular feelings and figurations of inheritance. We propose atmospheric attunement as a means of critically and care-fully examining and re-curating the inheritance of the Anthropocene, including the failures and absences due to colonial disinheritance.