Uranium Ore and the Grand Canyon Museum
What happened?
For 18 years, three 5-gallon buckets of uranium ore were stored dangerously close to exhibits and visitors at the Grand Canyon Park Museum. On February 4th, Elston “Swede” Stephenson – the safety, health, and wellness manager for Grand Canyon National Park – sent an email to all Park Service employees to warn them that they might have been exposed to an unsafe level of uranium ore. Stephenson didn’t send the email through proper channels, but rather, he sent the warning to fellow Park employees. He worried that there was no action to warn employees and visitors about their potentially dangerous levels of exposure to radiation. The email goes so far as to accuse the lack of communication on a “top down failure.”
 |
| Image of Grand Canyon Park, where one of the onsite museum buildings was housing uranium ore for 18 years. Source. |
How did we get here?
The buckets of uranium ore were first discovered in March 2018. After the buckets were discovered, they were safely removed from the premises of the museum, but according to the Park’s safety manager, visitors were “exposed” to uranium levels that exceeded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safe limits. Any visitor to the museum could have been exposed to the radiation, but the discovery is all the more alarming since the buckets were found near a taxidermy exhibit where school groups stopped for presentations that sometimes lasted as long as 30 minutes. Museum visitors’ safety was compromised due to a confounding level of negligence.
The Oil Giant and the British Museum
What happened?
On Saturday, February 16th, 350 activists gathered inside the British Museum’s Great Court to protest the Museum’s relationship with BP, an oil giant with a history of exploitation. The protesters wielded signs denouncing BP, particularly the company’s exploitation of Iraq’s oil fields after the Iraq War. The protesters, part of a group called “BP or Not to BP?” were particularly infuriated by BP sponsoring the current exhibit at the museum titled I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria. The exhibition focuses on Middle Eastern art, so BP’s sponsorship – given the company’s history in the Middle East – seems particularly distasteful. The group included many climate change activists who wanted to draw attention to BP’s exploitation of the land and unparalleled damage to the environment. In addition to the museum’s relationship with BP, the protesters also claimed that the artefacts featured in the exhibit were unlawfully removed from Iraq, and therefore the British Museum is exhibiting “stolen goods.”
How did we get here?
BP is sponsoring the current exhibition, but the British Museum has a relationship with the company that spans over 22 years. The Museum boasts that this corporate sponsorship, which has now been renewed until 2022, allows millions of visitors to view the museum’s exhibitions, but this “success story” conveniently omits the details about the company’s reputation. The public is beginning to pay more attention to museums’ sources of funding, and this protest exemplifies the danger when museums are aligned with “tainted” donors. Other recent protests, like those of Nan Goldin, take over museum spaces in order to command visitors’ attention and force visitors to consider museums' misaligned ethics.
Where do we go from here?
Although the two news-breaking stories are technically unrelated, the two cases both demand a closer look at museums’ accountability to their publics. With the Grand Canyon Museum, there was a failure to communicate and act on a major risk to the public’s health and safety. With the British Museum, there was a failure to critically assess the museum’s funding sources and reconsider corporate sponsors in light of public outcry.
These two different cases both exemplify that museums are at their weakest when they lose public trust. From failing to communicate a major health risk to failing to reconsider donor relations, these two institutions now have extensive work to repair their relationship with the public and restore their reputation as cultural institutions.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.