In a post-​​truth era, the role of trusted insti­tu­tions of sci­ence is more impor­tant than ever. Draw­ing on recent ini­tia­tives orga­nized by The Nat­ural His­tory Museum, a mobile and pop-​​up museum founded by the activist art col­lec­tive Not An Alter­na­tive, this talk will explore how The Nat­ural His­tory Museum lever­ages the sym­bolic and infra­struc­tural power of sci­ence muse­ums to trans­form them into vital infra­struc­tures for envi­ron­men­tal progress, cham­pi­ons of sci­ence for the com­mon good, and advo­cates for a just and sus­tain­able future.

Beka Economopoulo­sis the cofounder and direc­tor of The Nat­ural His­tory Museum, a mobile and pop-​​up museum that high­lights the sociopo­lit­i­cal forces that shape nature. The museum is a project of Not An Alter­na­tive, a non­profit col­lec­tive that works at the inter­sec­tion of art, activism, and crit­i­cal the­ory. Named in the New York Times and ArtNet’s “Best in Art in 2015” roundups, the group’s work has been widely exhib­ited around the world. Economopou­los has two decades of expe­ri­ence work­ing in the advo­cacy and sus­tain­abil­ity sec­tors as the direc­tor of online orga­niz­ing at Green­peace and the direc­tor of strat­egy at Fis­sion Strat­egy, where clients included the United Nations Envi­ron­ment Pro­gramme, Global Cli­mate Change Alliance, Earth­Jus­tice, and others.

Dan Kam­men is a pro­fes­sor of energy at UC Berke­ley, with par­al­lel appoint­ments in the Energy and Resources Group, the Gold­man School of Pub­lic Pol­icy, and the Depart­ment of Nuclear Engi­neer­ing. He was appointed the first Envi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Part­ner­ship for the Amer­i­cas (ECPA) Fel­low by Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton in 2010. Kam­men is the found­ing direc­tor of the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (RAEL), and is a coor­di­nat­ing lead author for the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Panel on Cli­mate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He has founded or is on the board of more than ten com­pa­nies, and has served the State of Cal­i­for­nia and US fed­eral gov­ern­ment in expert and advi­sory capacities.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing units at UC Berke­ley: Arts + Design, Arts Research Center