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"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.

What do everyday objects and personal memories tell us about environmental change? Which personal items reflect the human impact on nature for you? Changing Natures is a digital, participatory collection experiment on the Anthropocene: Join us to celebrate the public launch of our platform and become part of the collection!