How to make your museums alive: an interview about Regenerative Museums with Lucimara Letelier. 

Published on November 14, 2024

[ Illustration : Claude Monet, Les Ravins de la Creuse, 1889, Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts (inv. 907.19.192). Photo : © Christian Devleeschauwer ]

Besson, Julie / Letelier, Lucimara

Is your museum alive? Do you feel alive as a museum professional? Lucimara Letelier tackled those two questions at MuseumNext London in 2018. She has been working since 2017 on projects integrating regenerative thinking and museums. Throughout this interview, she explains what the concept of regenerative museums means, its principles, and some examples of how to have ideas, take action, and commit to change. 

This interview is available in French and in Portuguese. 

Julie Besson: Could you tell us about your career?

Lucimara Letelier: I developed a career in arts management, museum fundraising, and communication for 20 years. For almost 8 years, I’ve dedicated myself to sustainability, sustainable practices, and regeneration.

Before that, I worked in social impact museums and a human rights organization called ActionAid, which also advocates for women´s rights and climate justice.

What I am doing now is a combination of my background in museum and arts & cultural management with social and environmental impact. It’s uniting what I have done before with a new purpose in my life. Until September 2024, I am in the United Kingdom, doing a master’s in museum studies with a specialization in green museums and social impact.

J. B.: You have been working on regenerative museums for several years now and have pioneered academic research on how to apply this concept in the Museums sector. Can you explain this concept?

L. L.: For many years, regeneration in the museum field was associated with urban regeneration, for example, projects like Bilbao.

Regenerative museum, in the sense of my research, is a little different. It is based on the concept of regeneration developed by recent authors and thinkers of the last twenty years. It’s a consciousness that we can no longer sustain our planet and its resources anymore. It means we have reached resource depletion;  it is not enough to do less harm – which is the sustainability model – and to do more good – which is the sustainable development model -: we need to regenerate.

But what do we need to regenerate?

Museums can regenerate territories, places and cities, but also change value systems. By being regenerative, museums can give another notion of progress and thus, help society become a regenerator by itself. That knowledge can help to restore lands and territories. A Regenerative culture has a lot to do with bringing people to the notion of « commons », in which prosperity and abundance are collectively built.

Regenerative museums have more dynamic ways of thinking about their purpose for the future and the present. They commit to restoration and reparation: they commit to change. To change the ecosystem they are involved with by doing social and environmental change. If museums start learning what is degenerating in the territory where they are (a neighbourhood, a city, a region..), they can work with communities to rewild these areas, for example, by creating vegetable gardens or similar projects to preserve biodiversity.

There are other ways to be a regenerative museum. With a regenerative mindset, museums can give back objects that were stolen or taken from other countries. By engaging with communities, museums can learn the ecological patterns of the objects’ original land. They can then reframe the way they present these objects in their museums.

J. B.:  Is the regenerative museum approach different in the Global South or the Global North? What makes a museum regenerative?

L. L.: The Global South has been more exposed to severe climate events, and it recognises climate emergencies and social emergencies more frequently. This affects how museums respond. They have responded earlier to social issues, as we can see with social museology in Brazil and South America. Many countries were also colonized: the narratives in these places can be framed to think regeneratively. 

We can also talk about ecomuseums: it’s a museum that minds its territory and not only its collections but also minds the notion of community participation. Ecomuseums in the North are different from the ecomuseums in the South. For example, there is an ecomuseum in the Amazon which is regenerative by essence. I point out in my research that some museums, such as ecomuseums, were born regenerative: they were meant to be related to the territory needs, to include the community in the decision-making process and to relate to the present moment.

Although some other museums were not born regenerative, they can have regenerative initiatives. It is a mindset rather than a typology. 

One thing I want to emphasize is that regeneration as a theory of change is a concept that has developed seven principles, which are a translation of the living system principles. It means that an organization can learn to be regenerative if it learns how to be alive.

Some thinkers recognized that a number of organizations are not connected to life. Regeneration is about restoring the patterns in the system that are conductive to life. It is about developing actions that will help the ecosystem regenerate itself because that’s what life does! Yet, because humans have made too many negative interventions, regeneration has to be done on purpose to recover these natural patterns.

When a museum is regenerative, it applies at least some of these principles. The seven principles are :

• Wholeness: Museums applying a holistic approach to cultural, social, economic, and environmental work. The decision-making process does not separate the notion of environmental sustainability from social sustainability.
• Potential &  EssenceI like to bring these two together. Every place has potential, and every organization has an essence: when both meet, we can create innovation and empower the ecosystem. If a museum recognizes and understands its essence, which is what it can do for its territory, and recognizes the potential of the place by hearing the community: there are regenerative purposes that the museum can find such as healing and caring for the place.
• Development: in the process of actions the museum will undertake, it is developing stakeholders’ capabilities. 
• Reciprocity: While involving the community, they will learn from the museum as much as the museum will learn from them 
• Nestedness: it’s the understanding that the visitors, the museum, the city, the country, the planet is a nested system.
• Nodal: When you look at the interconnectedness, doing an intervention to a nodal point can bring a systemic transformation ;

What I have done in some of my research is look at museums that have some of these principles applied. We call this “designing as nature”, it means observing nature and learning how nature brings life back to its cycle and transferring this to the management system, or people’s lives, and then to the museum sector.

J. B.: How to help museum professionals build competencies for regenerative museums?

L. L.: Part of my research is pointing out that we need to build regenerative leadership in museums. Regenerative leadership is an approach studied in literature, applicable to the sector.

In my research, one important thing I noted is that we need to have embodied knowledge. We can’t just learn about regeneration in classes or via conferences… We need to be in an immersive process. The idea behind regenerative leadership in museums is that « people can be weavers ». This is a quote from Daniel Wahl. He talks about how regenerative leaders need to learn how to facilitate conversations with the communities and bring knowledge and wisdom from the community to the museum, to find solutions together.

Museum professionals need to unlearn things, to embrace the questions more than the answers and they need to be vulnerable. Exposure to vulnerability, uncertainty and impermanence in the museum field is quite scary for many professionals who have been trained with an evidence-based approach, especially in the Global North.

To summarize, they need to :

• embrace uncertainty ;
• to create programs to develop inner skills, soft skills and inner development goals.

Regenerative leadership is a combination of outer and inner work. Some of the characteristics are experimental leaders, and risk-takers, interested in protecting nature together with the value systems of the museum. The missions and purpose of the museum need to meet the needs of nature. 

To create a non-cognitive learning process that brings socio-ecological experiences, to learn through nature, to be in nature, to create rest-and-see programs for regenerative learning to happen in nature. There are academies in the North and in the South, but not devoted to museums. Museum leaders can look for these leadership academies to evolve and bring this knowledge into the museum sector. I have done some training and immersive programs in regeneration to be able to now transfer that knowledge to the museum sector.

Peer-sharing is important in regenerative learning. One important thing is to recognize that we are experiencing a social-environmental collapse. It can be hard for people. Then, you have to start thinking about solutions, propositions to bring life back, and experiments. In both moments—recognizing the collapse and experimenting with ideas—it is very important to be accompanied by a network that sustains your beliefs.

Regenerative leadership requires facing uncertainty, but you don’t need to do it alone; you can network with like-minded people.

Policymakers can create systems for these to happen: networks and associations to discuss regenerative thinking, climate, and social solutions.

J.B.: Is ICOM a network for museum professionals to discuss regenerative museums?

L.L.: I am a vice-chair of the ICOM Sustain, the ICOM Committee for Sustainable Development & museums. I believe ICOM is now very supportive of the idea that all museums should embrace sustainable development practices and sustainability based on the ICOM Resolution in Sustainability from Kyoto, 2019.

I have been invited to talk at the most recent ICOM conference about sustainability & museums in Seoul, South Korea. I was welcomed by the network of museum professionals highlighting the importance of regeneration as an evolutionary path to the journey of sustainability. And as the next step for museums is to commit to finding long-term solutions to social and environmental issues. 

Of course, museums need to do sustainability, which is having a green building in place, decarbonising the operations, looking for NetZERO operations, waste management, energy renewable, water reuse… Now, if they add a regenerative lens through the process, they will see that the solution can’t be reduced to a green building but it can be a starting point for a conversation in the museum. 

Throughout ICOM Sustain, we are committed to creating a network of individuals who want to dialogue, share ideas and share how they are evolving their practices. It is to have a hub of resources that people can share while creating conferences and workshops. There is one museum in the US called the Ford Museum, which has developed a residential program for regenerative farmers. How can we expand these case studies so people can be inspired by these ideas that are happening globally is what we are working on. 

Icom UK has invited me to join their Annual Conference Advisory Committee to bring Regenerative thinking to the heart of the Conference next year. I am now part of the organizing committee for the 2025 ICOM UK Conference and have supported the development of its core concept and title: « Regenerative Museums for Sustainable Futures ». 

J. B.: You’re currently conducting a study about regenerative museums. What have your findings been?

L. L.: The main finding is that museums require a new paradigm for social environmental work. One finding of the research, which came from the interviewees, is that regenerative thinking can bring a positive paradigm for museums to proactively create solutions for social environmental work. Why? Because some of the environmental issues that museums are facing require difficult decisions on degrowth. There is not necessarily common ground on the notion of decolonial thinking museums. Bringing the idea of regenerative development is very positive: it does include degrowth, it does include decolonial thinking, yet the conversation starts with creating a regenerative present. It may be very engaging and positive!

The second finding is that museums can be living systems themselves. It’s based on what I explained earlier, the seven living system principles. According to my interviewees, the Regenerative framework can help museums bring back the narrative that unites humans and nature.

The third one is that regenerative thinking expands the potential of decolonization. It brings an ecological lens to it. What has been done in decolonization has been important in terms of social impact, reparation, and community engagement. Including regeneration as part of it can help repair ecocide and historicize.

The fourth one is that museums can commit to healing places, to be caretakers of places. Museums will be acting as community hubs and can create adaptive resilience.

The fifth finding is that sustainable development is an evolutionary path to regeneration. The research findings pointed out the issues that sustainable development needs to improve to be regenerative. For example, the Sustainable Development Goals include economic growth. Regeneration is about qualitative growth: it may require degrowth or another notion of progress.

The final one is how museums can create a generation of regenerators through different stories. There are more than 100,000 museums globally, and more than two billion people visit museums worldwide. It’s an opportunity to influence mindsets. If these museums commit to shifting narratives, they can influence the new generation to become regenerators.

What would these stories tell about the future? One is to expose the degenerative truth,  that we have a society producing degeneration, destruction, and collapse. These stories are not necessarily in museums. Second, we need to bring regenerative stories, positive stories, other ways of abundance, of living, and other ways of thinking that will challenge modern societies’ dogmas of success, prosperity and consumption. It can bring a different value system. Another thing is reversing the story separating humans and nature.

J.B.: Do you have in mind some actions taken by museums that made a change in their communities?

L.L.: There is an ecomuseum in Benin, Tata Somba, that is recovering the wisdom community about vernacular houses and bioconstruction. They are building houses based on their ancestors’ knowledge. This creates community engagement and tourism development as well. The museum is also doing classes with the new generation so they can learn about it. 

The Anzania Museum in Kenya, also called the Natural Future Museum, serves as a learning space for young people about nature and is restoring biodiversity. It is restoring a former quarry into a centre of reflection about the natural future based on local children´s perspective in Kenya, Africa. 

Both examples show museums can not only create new narratives but also act on the place they are located in. New stories for the future can come up via a community hub, creating positive stories for the future. The care for the place brings the community together.

The Manchester University Museum created a climate hub. They are repatriating objects from an Australian island. They are learning with the communities from Australia and reviewing their collections management process. The museum’s collection management process and curatorship systems have been re-evaluated based on the practices they learned with the community.

They are creating exhibitions about rewilding and how communities can learn to rewild in urban spaces. They also hold places for conversations, where visitors can talk about what it means to them. 

I want to reinforce that the notion of place is important in regeneration. By regenerating place by place, we can regenerate the earth. One starting point is having conversations with visitors about what the place means to them and how they can unite with the museum to regenerate that place. This is what the Manchester Museum is doing.

In my interviews, professionals do not necessarily call what they are doing regenerative practices. As a researcher, I recognise that the principles they are using are regenerative.

J. B.: Is there anything you want to add?

L. L.: At the end of my research, I say that regenerative museum is about applying « radical love ». This concept comes from Satish Kumar, a Schumacher College teacher, where I had classes with him about the reconnection between humans and nature, between « Soil, Soul and Society ».

We need to reclaim our humanity. My research invites museums to join this movement, step aside from crystallized knowledge, and open space for more human-kind work. It’s time to review our relationship with nature. It requires change. The research is an invitation to act. We can’t continue destroying nature as we are. Museums can help us reflect on and act upon it.

Regeneration is not new, it’s an ancestral and biological knowledge. Life is regenerating all the time. But because we have destroyed the system, we need to restart the pattern and remind people that regeneration is part of us, of our wisdom to save lives and the planet. I’m facilitating that reminder.

To read the research and watch the videos from the Research interviews: 

Visit the Research webpage: www.regenerativemuseums.com

This Video Playlist is based on the research « Regenerative Museums: Reshaping the Museums’ Role in Addressing Social and Environmental Collapse » by Lucimara Letelier from the University of Leicester in the UK from March to July 2024.

Interview/ Research Participants

Museums Professionals:

• 1.      Bridget Mckenzie, Director of Climate Museum UK (UK)
• 2.      Esme Ward, Director of Manchester University Museum (UK)
• 3.      Evy Weezendonk, Director of Anzania Natural Future Museum (Kenya, Africa)
• 4.      Jenny Newell, Curator for Climate Change at the Australian Museum (Australia)
• 5.      Marlucia Santos, Director of Museu Vivo São Bento (Brazil)
• 6.      Nick Merriman, Author of the book “Museums and the Climate Crisis” (UK)
• 7.      Robert Janes, Author of “Museums and Societal Collapse” (Canadá)
• 8.      Terezinha Martins, Former Director of EcoMuseum Amazon (Brazil)
• 9.      Hannah Hartley. Environmental Action Manager at the Manchester Museum (UK)

Regenerative Thinkers & practitioners:

• 1.      Bill Reed, Principal at Regenegis Group (US)
• 2.      Daniel Wahl, author of Design Regenerative Cultures (Germany/Spain)
• 3.      Juliana Diniz and Felipe Tavares, Directors of IDR – Regenerative Development Institute (Brazil)

To discover more : 

http://www.lucimaraletelier.com.br

https://www.regeneramuseu.com.br/

To follow Lucimara Letelier : 

https://www.instagram.com/regeneramuseu/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucimara-letelier/?originalSubdomain=uk