Exhibition design beyond anthropocentrism

New roles and new challenges for contemporary museums

Abstract

The article starts with a reflection on the role of museums and cultural institutions as places for producing knowledge and promoting understanding of the complex phenomena that animate the contemporary world, with the capacity to reflect and represent themes and challenges of the reality in which they operate, such as the current ecological crisis, aiming at the possibility of playing the role of ‘activators of change’. In the multifaceted sphere of design for cultural productions, exhibition design is entrusted with the central role of effectively telling and conveying, in a manner that is also highly experimental, universal messages of sustainability, combining them with the concreteness of the small possible worlds preserved in exhibitions, to promote more aware and interconnected communities.