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#1 "Changing Natures" at the Fête de la science (October 2022, Paris)

The Anthropocene is everywhere! And you might even encounter its traces in Berlin’s “Neuköllner Oper” - How come?

"We invite everyone to become collectors" - Are we on the verge of proclaiming a new human earth epoch? The Natural History Museum Berlin is calling on citizens to help build a museum of the Anthropocene with their own exhibits. An interview with Elisabeth Heyne on the project “Changing Natures”.

Insects are disappearing, forests are burning and cities are growing: the impact of human activities on the Earh is now so profound that scientists want to declare a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene. A guided tour through the exhibition telling stories of extinct species to talk about the question what we can do together to protect the diversity of life on our planet.

In October 2022, the Artips Sciences newsletter proposes to discover environmental amnesia and presents Changing Natures.

In its "Science and Society" section, the magazine Pour la science, partner of Changing Natures, publishes an interview of Frédérique Chlous and Romain Julliard conducted by François Lassagne. The article is entitled: "Participatory science documents the intimate experience of environmental change".

La Girafe is the magazine for the general public for news and programming from the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, it is published quarterly. The October 2022 issue presents Changing Natures.

New narratives for a new geologcal era: Bring your own everyday objects or testimonies from the past to the opera and tell us your personal story about man-made environmental changes. Afterwards, the hall of the Neuköllner Oper itself will be transformed into a musical museum. With the music theatre show NEUE LIEDER VON DER ERDE, Neuköllner Oper and Stegreif Orchester create a theatrical symphony about the Earth and how its changes. Four workshops on new stories for a new geological era:    October 15, 20, 26, 2022, and November 11, 2022    7:15 p.m. in the studio of the Neuköllner Oper    Tickets hereMake your personal object part of the collection in advance digitally on changing-natures.org and live on site!

"Changing Natures" is a fully digital, participatory museum collection about ongoing environmental change, based on your objects and documents from the past, accompanied by your personal stories. Do you have an object or a document from the near or distant past, which appeals to you, surprises you personally, and which reveals something about the changes in our environment? Discover our platform, browse through other people's contributions and stories and start sharing your own stories!

The impact of human activity on the Earth is so profound that scientists want to claim a new geological era, named after humans: The Anthropocene. Is it even possible to consider nature separately from humans? How did we ever come to see ourselves as seperate from nature? And what does that mean for the Museum of Natural History? Mira Witte and Elisabeth Heyne from "Changing Natures" are guests on the podcast “Beats & Bones”, a podcast of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Together with host Lukas Klaschinski, they take a somewhat different look at the collected objects. I wonder what they reveal about our relationship with nature.Listen to the whole episode here (in German language): https://beats-and-bones.podigee.io/43-neue-episode

"Changing Natures" is about collecting personal, local and cultural knowledge about the human impact on nature based on everyday objects and their stories. That's why it's particularly exciting for us to personally introduce the digital collection to vitsitors of the museum and start conversations around possible collection items. We did that on the special occasions of the "Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften" on July 2, 2022, as well as the "Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften" on August 27, 2022 at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.Equipped with a Polaroid camera, we asked visitors to take a look in their own bags and pockets to search for an object that tells a story about environmental change. In fact, various personal items and everyday objects could be used to tell stories about changes in nature from very different perspectives. Visitors draw connections between handkerchiefs, lighters or smartphones and linked them to global environmental issues - and thus created the "Anthropocene in the Bag" collection.Soon we will continue with workshop dates in Berlin - updates will be published soon! 

InSitu, the in-house journal of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, is published three times a year. The July 2022 issue presents Changing Natures.