WASHINGTON (828newsNOW) — The “Museum of Unnatural Disasters” is an exhibit cataloguing the experiences of disaster survivors from across the United States over the last three years, including Tropical Storm Helene. The pop-up will be open in Washington, D.C., through mid-June.
The “Museum of Unnatural Disasters” will be run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, and noon to 5 p.m., Saturday to Sunday, June 3-14, at the East End Plaza of the Constitution Gardens in Washington. No tickets are required to visit the free exhibit, but guests are encouraged to RSVP at www.mobilize.us/climateactioncampaign/event/947473.
Cataloguing the climate crisis
The climate exhibit is an initiative of the Climate Action Campaign, a collective of environmental advocacy groups from across the United States. The project was curated by Sam Hartman, an Asheville, N.C., resident and designer who lived through Helene.
Hartman said that the museum is centered around telling human stories of disaster, be it tornado, hurricane, fire, freeze or flood, through the items they carried through their experiences.
“This pop-up came from the idea that any person you meet on the street, you can’t necessarily see what storm they have been through, but their objects really carry that. We took into account that objects are kind of this silent witness to people’s lives, and often are kind of overlooked when it comes to climate disaster and really reading what happened in this situation,” Hartman explained. “So, we wanted to highlight stories of people who have gone through extreme weather and have experienced that, and talked to them about what were their saving graces, what were things that were devastated that cut the image. What do they still keep from that time and their experience?”…