@inproceedings{01GQEXKWVZDYCBZB50Z20DRGXF,
  abstract     = {{Translating the Climate Crisis in the Museum

As we make our way through the first half of the twenty-first century, the climate crisis is becoming one of the most discussed science topics. Parallelly and consequently, it has become a topic that science museums are presenting to different degrees and with local specificities.

However, more than 20 years after Krishtalka and Humphrey’s call for museums to “immediately harness” their collections to educate their public on the “environmental management of the planet” (2000), and four years after Cronin’s influential publication on Eco-translation (2017), research at the crossroads of these practices is missing. Indeed, while museums are becoming a focus for translation studies scholars (see for example Neather 2018, Valdeón 2015, Liao 2016), these have so far mainly targeted history or memory museums.

The hope for this paper is thus to start extending the “museum translation” research by providing a new type of case study that might enrich the discussion and find place in the broader context of sustainable humanities.

More specifically, this paper will question how the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels shares ideas related to the climate crisis with its visitors. This will be done through two approaches defined by Neather as “translations in the museum” and “museums as translation” (2018, p. 361). First, texts in multiple languages will be compared to determine whether they were adapted with the expectations of different cultural communities in mind. Secondly, the displays of the museum will be questioned for how they metaphorically “translate” the climate crisis for visitors to experience.
As this paper is in the early research stages, it will discuss the first results of the texts and displays analyses crossed with discussions with the museum's team, which will provide insights on their choices and processes.}},
  author       = {{Decroupet, Sophie}},
  booktitle    = {{Sustainability and Translation, Annual International Conference of the Institute of Culture Studies and Theatre History}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Vienna, Austria}},
  title        = {{Translating the climate crisis in the museum}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}