Virtual Exhibitions 2021, No. 2

Oceans in Three Paradoxes: Knowing the Blue through the Humanities

by
Helen M. Rozwadowski
What can the humanities reveal about people's interconnections with the ocean, past and present? In 1975, the maritime historian Benjamin Labaree offered an influential argument that the Atlantic acted simultaneously as bridge and moat for European settlers of North America. The paradox of these overlapping functions provided a touchstone for understanding the maritime realm, but it is time to recognize the ocean as more than the flat surface implied by it. Two further pairings, repository–mirror and destination–home, testify to the duration of the human connections with the sea, including its depths, and also to the distinct ocean relationships forged by different cultures. The blue humanities provide a mooring for considering not only the ocean's past and present but its future as well.
Virtual Exhibitions 2021, No. 1

Toxic Relationships: Uncovering the Worlds of Hazardous Waste

by
Maximilian Feichtner, Jonas Stuck, Ayushi Dhawan, Christina Lennartz, and Simone M. Müller
Modern societies’ hazardous by-products cast a dark shadow over the planet. A threat to humans and the environment alike, hazardous waste comes in many guises: discarded batteries, asbestos, giant ships, or tailings from mining operations. While these objects might not seem dangerous at first sight, they have characteristics and components that make them potentially deadly. This virtual exhibition gives you an insight into the obscure world of hazardous waste, its questionable trade across the globe, and the people successfully fighting for safe and just waste management. The Hazardous Travels research team takes you on a journey both into our research and to the edges of our societies that many prefer not to see.
Virtual Exhibitions 2020, No. 3

American Land Rush: “A Lonely Homesteader” Searches for Security in the Montana Homestead Boom

by
Sara M. Gregg
Swept up in the optimism of the 1910s, Lily Stearns settled with her four children on a promising homestead in northeastern Montana, where she found her fate conscribed by extreme weather and the limits of her endurance. This richly illustrated virtual exhibition tells the story of one participant in the largest homestead boom in US history, revealing the erratic fortunes of farm life reflected in the abundant economic, political, and personal uncertainties of the era.
Virtual Exhibitions 2020, No. 2

Ecopolis München 2019: Environmental Stories of Discovery

by
Katrin Kleemann
Ecopolis München 2019: Environmental Stories of Discovery is an exhibition on Munich’s environmental histories. It showcases the final projects of students in the Environmental Studies Certificate Program of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. The stories told in this exhibition ask: to whom does the urban world belong and what do we want the urban environment of the future to look like?
Virtual Exhibitions 2020, No. 1

Another Silent Spring

by
Donald Worster
In this virtual exhibition, historian Donald Worster explains how human relations with other animals, wild and domestic, are at the core of a majority of epidemics. In the face of the current coronavirus crisis, he argues that an exclusive focus on human life and economy will keep neither the planet nor ourselves healthy. We must decide "whether we humans can or want to restore and protect the health, not just of ourselves, but also of the planet."
Virtual Exhibitions 2019, No. 5

Fleischloser Humor: Der frühe Vegetarismus im Zerrspiegel der Karikatur

by
Evi Zemanek and Sophia Burgenmeister
Der Vegetarismus wird als alternatives Ernährungsmodell bis heute kontrovers diskutiert. Viele aktuell vorgebrachte Argumente für und wider eine vegetarische Lebensweise wurden schon im 19. Jahrhundert in den Medien verbreitet. Diese virtuelle Ausstellung beleuchtet die ersten Jahrzehnte der Debatte um fleischlose Ernährung im deutschsprachigen Kulturraum. Dabei wählt sie eine besondere Perspektive: Sie spiegelt die Ausdifferenzierung des Diskurses und die Entwicklung visueller Topoi rund um den Vegetarismus in Karikaturen und Satiren, die seinerzeit die Bewegung, Lebensphilosophie, Vereinsstrukturen und Ernährungsgewohnheiten verspottet haben. Außerdem gibt sie amüsante Einblicke in den damaligen Humor.
Klicken Sie hier, um mehr über diese Ausstellung zu erfahren. Diese virtuelle Ausstellung ist hier in englischer Sprache zu finden.
Virtual Exhibitions 2019, No. 4

Satirical Glimpses of the Cultural History of Vegetarianism

by
Evi Zemanek and Sophia Burgenmeister
Vegetarianism as an alternative nutritional model is a controversial topic. Many contemporary arguments for and against a vegetarian way of life can be traced back to early discussions about vegetarianism in nineteenth-century media. This virtual exhibition sheds light on the first decades of the debate on meatless nutrition in German-speaking regions. In doing so, the exhibition adopts a special perspective: by examining vegetarianism as it is represented in caricatures, it is able to reconstruct the verbal and visual arguments used both in favor of as well as against the movement. The exhibition reflects upon the ambivalent public perception of vegetarianism at the time and, additionally, provides an amusing window into the wit and humor of the period.
Click here to read about the exhibition. The German version of this virtual exhibition can be found here.
Virtual Exhibitions 2019, No. 3

Drought, Mud, Filth, and Flood: Water Crises in Australian Cities, 1880s–2010s

by
Andrea Gaynor, Margaret Cook, Lionel Frost, Jenny Gregory, Ruth Morgan, Martin Shanahan, Peter Spearritt, Susan Avey, Nathan Etherington, Elizabeth Gralton, and Daniel Martin
In this exhibition, we invite visitors to consider the historical relationship of “water crises” of various kinds to the development of urban water systems, through the experience of the driest inhabited continent on earth, Australia. We have chosen a range of different departures from water-related business as usual—from shortage to flood, pollution to drainage—in the five mainland Australian state capitals from the late nineteenth century to the present. The part of this exhibition devoted to each city focuses thematically on just one or two kinds of crisis, while the timeline covers a wider range of events in each place.
Virtual Exhibitions 2019, No. 2

Global Environments: A 360º Visual Journey

by
ENHANCE ITN Doctoral researchers
Communicating global environmental issues in new and exciting ways can lead to a better public understanding of academic research. The international doctoral researchers of the ENHANCE Innovative Training Network (ITN) present their interdisciplinary projects through short, immersive videos, accompanied by analytical contextualization. These six 360º videos and one multiple-screen video triptych, shot in different countries and ecosystems, aim to bring people closer to an in situ experience of global environments, their complexities, and our relationship to them.
Virtual Exhibitions 2018, No. 5

Mensch und Natur in der deutschen Literatur: Ein kuratierter Spaziergang durch eine Geschichte der Verwicklungen

by
Sabine Wilke
In dieser virtuellen Ausstellung werden kurze Auszüge deutschsprachiger Literatur vorgestellt, die die Verstrickung von Mensch und Natur adressieren. Ziel der Ausstellung ist es, zu zeigen, inwiefern Literatur einen wichtigen Beitrag zum Verständnis und Problematisieren der Beziehung zwischen Mensch und nicht-menschlicher Natur leisten kann. Welche Aspekte dieser Beziehung werden angesprochen, zu welchem Zeitpunkt in der Literaturgeschichte und wie werden diese lyrisch gestaltet? Diese virtuelle Austellung ist hier in englischer Sprache zu finden.
Virtual Exhibitions 2018, No. 4

Human-Nature Relations in German Literature: A Curated Stroll through a History of Entanglement

by
Sabine Wilke
This virtual exhibition features, in English translation, short excerpts from German-language literary texts that address human-nature entanglements. The aim is to show how literature can contribute to understanding and problematizing the relation between humans and nonhuman nature. What aspects of human-nature relations are addressed, at what point in literary history, and how are they shaped poetically? This virtual exhibition is also available in German here.
Virtual Exhibitions 2018, No. 3

The Life of Waste

by
Simone M. Müller
Everything is waste. Irrespective of their value, all materials and living things eventually become obsolete. At the same time, waste is life. Formerly discarded objects come to second life through reuse or recycling. Waste is one of the most complex, contested, and charged objects we humans deal with in our daily lives. The objects, texts, videos, and podcasts in this collection display the life of waste in six chapters. Historian Simone M. Müller shows how humans produce, move, and conceive of waste. Get to know the power of waste, and learn about the different mechanisms that we have found to cope with the trash in our lives.
Virtual Exhibitions 2018, No. 2

MB Williams: Living & Writing the Early Years of Parks Canada

by
Alan MacEachern
This exhibition tells the story of Mabel “MB” Williams, an extraordinary, ordinary woman who became devoted to national parks and engendered that devotion in others. Historian Alan MacEachern documents her role in shaping the philosophy of Canada's Dominion Parks Branch (the precursor to Parks Canada) in the early to mid-twentieth century. Digitized photographs and letters from Williams's life, her guidebooks and other publications, and audio interviews with Williams herself reveal her influence on, and love for, Canada's national parks.
Virtual Exhibitions 2018, No. 1

Radical Environmentalism’s Print History: From Earth First! to Wild Earth

by
Bron Taylor
This exhibition sheds light on the publications of the radical environmental movement Earth First! and its offshoots. American scholar and conservationist Bron Taylor discusses the political and ethical history of the movement while highlighting the unique collection of Earth First! movement writings hosted on the Environment & Society Portal.
Virtual Exhibitions 2017, No. 2

Ecopolis München

by
L. Sasha Gora (ed.)
Ecopolis München: Environmental Histories of a City is an exhibition on Munich's environmental histories and showcases the final projects of students in the Environmental Studies Certificate Program of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.
Virtual Exhibitions 2017, No. 1

The Northwest Passage: Myth, Environment, and Resources

by
Elena Baldassarri
This exhibition tells the story of the Northwest Passage from the pursuit of a myth to the exploitation of natural resources. Historian Elena Baldassarri takes readers on a multimedia tour of the Arctic, featuring interactive maps, photographs, videos, and interviews with experts, scholars, and elders of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada.
Virtual Exhibitions 2016, No. 2

Energy Transitions

by
Nuno Luís Madureira
Human practices of energy consumption both transform—and are transformed by—social structures. This exhibition—written by historian Nuno Luís Madureira—introduces the concept of “energy transitions,” structural shifts in energy use and their pathways, obstacles, and consequences, challenging the view of “transitions” as the simple replacement of one energy resource by another.
Virtual Exhibitions 2016, No. 1

Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration through Letters

by
Elin Kelsey
“Doom and gloom” has become the de facto cultural construct not only for environmental communication but for the environmental science it seeks to communicate. We are interested in engaging in deep conversation about what it means to shift beyond “doom and gloom,” and to create movement toward more hopeful, solutions-oriented environmental narratives.
Virtual Exhibitions 2015, No. 2

Famines in Late Nineteenth-Century India: Politics, Culture, and Environmental Justice

by
Timo Myllyntaus and Naresh Chandra Sourabh
Between 1850 and 1899, India suffered 24 major famines, a number higher than in any other recorded 50-year period, resulting in millions of deaths. This exhibition—written by sociologist Naresh Chandra Sourabh and economic historian Timo Myllyntaus—describes the environmental and social factors that contributed to these cataclysmic events, situating their causes and costs within the complex natural and cultural contexts of nineteenth-century colonial India.
Virtual Exhibitions 2015, No. 1

Ludwig Leichhardt: A German Explorer’s Letters Home from Australia

by
Heike Hartmann
Seventeen letters sent by Ludwig Leichhardt from 1842–48 vividly depict his stay in Australia. In this exhibition curated by historian Heike Hartmann, we are introducing a brand new English translation of the letters and a timeline tool with which to view those, this virtual exhibition documents Leichhardt's adventurous stay in Australia and opens up new perspectives for the environmental history of the land, Europeans' engagement with its indigenous population, and international scientific networks at the time.
Virtual Exhibitions 2014, No. 3

Las corrientes de la ciudad: Una historia del agua en la Bogotá del siglo XX

by
Stefania Gallini, Laura Felacio, Angélica Agredo, and Stephanie Garcés
Esta exposición explora el rol del agua en la lucha de Bogotá, capital de Colombia, por convertirse en una ciudad moderna. Para Bogotá, cumplir con los estándares de los higienistas y la élite gobernante fue una tarea de control social, tecnológico y ambiental. Esta exposición examina experiencias cotidianas del agua como el lavado de la ropa o la limpieza del cuerpo, al mismo tiempo que estudia intervenciones de infraestructura urbana que incluyeron la domesticación de los ríos para el abastecimiento de agua potable y la evacuación de aguas residuales.
Virtual Exhibitions 2014, No. 3

The City's Currents: A History of Water in 20th-Century Bogotá

by
Stefania Gallini, Laura Felacio, Angélica Agredo, and Stephanie Garcés
This exhibition explores the role of water in the struggle of Colombia's capital to become a modern city. For Bogotá, complying with the standards of sanitary reformers and the governing elite was a social, technological, and environmental control endeavor. The exhibition examines everyday and gendered experiences of water, such as washing clothes or bathing, as well as urban infrastructural interventions including the domestication of rivers for water supply and wastewater disposal systems.
Virtual Exhibitions 2014, No. 2

Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands

by
Nina Möllers
Together with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, the Deutsches Museum hosted a major special exhibition on the Anthropocene from December 2014 – September 2016, which was curated by Nina Möllers. Coined by the atmospheric chemist and Nobel Prize laureate Paul J. Crutzen, the term “Anthropocene” describes the idea of a new geological era shaped by deep interventions into nature by humans as biological and geological agents.
Virtual Exhibitions 2014, No. 1

Representing Environmental Risk in the Landscapes of US Militarization

by
Hsuan L. Hsu
This virtual exhibition curated by literary scholar Hsuan Hsu examines the environmental impact of US military activities worldwide and how activists have used art and other forms of representational media to convey the harmful effects of militarization on the local population and landscape.
Virtual Exhibitions 2013, No. 2

The Wegener Diaries: Scientific Expeditions into the Eternal Ice

by
Christian Kehrt
This virtual exhibition sheds light on Alfred Wegener's expeditions to Greenland between 1906 and 1931. Its main focus is on the diaries Wegener wrote during his explorations, which offer unique insights into the manifold challenges man and material faced in Greenland's extreme environments. You may choose to read the diaries in their original state, or browse the expeditions individually and read transcribed and translated excerpts by clicking on the individual chapters.

This version, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2013 virtual exhibition.

PDFs of the virtual exhibition, as well as original scans and transcripts of the Wegener Diaries, can be found at the exhibition's PDF Depot.

Virtual Exhibitions 2013, No. 1

Wilderness Babel: What Does Wilderness Mean in Your Language?

by
Marcus Hall and Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
What does wilderness mean in your language? Listen to words for “wilderness” and learn about their political and historical meanings in different regional contexts. "Wilderness Babel" is a collaboration with the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich, edited by Marcus Hall and Wilko Graf von Hardenberg. Its international contributions are still growing.

This version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2013 virtual exhibition (view PDF here) and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.

The Environment & Society Portal is a project of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, a joint initiative of LMU Munich and the Deutsches Museum. The center is supported by a grant from the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. Read more about the Portal in English and in German.