After President Mandel’s 2018 announcement that the college would begin a strategic planning process introduced an overall commitment to sustainability along with DEI and other academic and institutional initiatives at Williams, several administrative and academic departments have started to actively plan and execute their part in the college’s ambitious sustainability goals through the drafting and execution of a Departmental Sustainability Action Plan (dSAP).
The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) was the first department to complete and begin executing a finalized dSAP. The plan, which was adopted in October of 2023, is highly specific to WCMA’s goals as both a teaching art museum and as a department within the college committed to overall sustainability goals. Now that it has had time to institute many of the changes outlined in the dSap and with the announcement of the construction of the new WCMA building, it’s worthwhile to take another look at how WCMA is reimagining the ways a museum can begin to operate in harmony with both its patrons and the environment. Here’s an update on WCMA’s exciting journey and some of the unique steps the museum is taking to make green the new gold.
Balancing Goals With Sustainable Innovation
As WCMA embraces sustainability while staying committed to engaging the Williamstown community with art, striking the right balance has required creativity and dedication. Many exhibitions and events at the museum require pieces, display structures, and guest artists to be transported to Williams, stay for a while, and then move on. The museum’s location makes it particularly difficult to avoid the shipping and energy-intensive transportation that comes with supplying art to Williams. This has made working within the typical lens of sustainability a bit more complex for WCMA and has required the museum to embrace alternatives for offsetting some of the necessary setbacks to its sustainability goals. Exhibitions like “Emancipation”, which is available to view right now at WCMA, exemplify this balance, demonstrating how the museum is navigating the sustainability behind its exhibitions while still ensuring viewers have an impactful museum experience.
Challenges: Transporting Art Sustainably
“Emancipation,” which opened at the Carter Museum in 2023, arrived at WCMA in February 2024 and ended its stay in Williamstown on July 14th, 2024, before moving on to the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia. The goal of the exhibition, which features works by Sadie Barnette, Alfred Conteh, Maya Freelon, Hugh Hayden, Letitia Huckaby, Jeffrey Meris, and Sable Elyse Smith, is to visualize “Black freedom, agency, and the legacy of the Civil War today and beyond.” Each installation of the exhibit highlights historical art and documents significant to the region it visits, making the transportation of pieces and careful construction of the exhibition space essential for its impact on museum-goers. WCMA is tackling similar challenges head-on by adopting innovative practices to offset the environmental impact of transporting exhibits like “Emancipation.” Some of the museum’s strategies include:
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: By using moveable exhibit walls that can be reconfigured and reused, as opposed to having the campus Facilities team take down and craft new exhibit spaces each time, WCMA is dramatically reducing waste that’s seemingly essential to their department.
- Communications: WCMA has begun utilizing digital and audio walk-throughs of exhibits instead of the typical brochure or packet to provide patrons with both a more sustainable and immersive experience with art. Specifically, WCMA has been using Bloomberg Connects, an audio guide, for walkthroughs of exhibits.
- Packing: WCMA is exploring ways to reduce the use of non-recyclable packing materials. By minimizing polyethylene foam and adhesives in art packing, the museum increases material reuse and sets a precedent for other institutions to follow. WCMA has also experimented with reusable crates for shipping artwork which keeps pieces safe and cuts back on excessive packing and waste. Grouping artwork shipments to reduce emissions is an additional packing initiative that WCMA has been working on.
- Tracking and Managing Emissions: Collaborating with “art transport and logistics companies”, WCMA is tracking and managing the emissions associated with exhibition transport, and seeking ways to offset these impacts. WCMA has also committed to holding meetings and events remotely whenever possible, with necessary flights for WCMA staff being booked through Egencia (a travel booking program that tracks and estimates emissions of travel options).
Unique Challenges, Creative Solutions: Sustainability In WCMA’s Future
As a teaching museum that is also free to the public, WCMA’s role involves the constant movement of people, materials, and art. This could be discouraging for a museum looking to improve its sustainability, but WCMA has risen to the challenge. It’s leading the charge in redefining what it means to do one’s part in the overall goal of a sustainable campus, even when that means evaluating and revisiting unique departmental challenges. With more departments finalizing their Departmental Sustainability Action Plans, Williams is in for some truly groundbreaking ideas and changes in its pursuit of sustainability.
WCMA’s commitment to sustainability extends beyond its current building and into a brand new space. The designs for the new building push for comfort and community, with wide open gallery spaces and an outdoor element that bridges sectors of the museum for visitors. As the new building for WCMA is constructed, sustainability will lie at its core. The building has been designed by SO-IL, an architectural firm known for projects such as the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at University of California, Davis. The Shrem Museum of Art has been rated by the U.S. Green Building Council as LEED Platinum Certified, the highest possible rating of sustainability. The firm has designed the new building with similar goals of meeting the highest sustainability standards possible for a museum, pushing for WCMA to become a symbol of innovative sustainability in the museum world. The building is set to utilize a rainwater retention system in its roof, climate control, renewable building supplies such as mass timber, sustainable landscaping, and more in its attempt to meet the standards of certification set by the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge. Instituting sustainable practices into the fabric of the museum is about more than certificates, and WCMA, as stated in the dSAP, has committed to “take advantage of opportunities to share the WCMA SAP with other museum and museum leaders (e.g., conversations among members of the Association of Art Museum Directors)”, working to inspire other museums to adopt sustainable practices and altering museum culture surrounding sustainability as a whole.
(Special thanks to Barbara Palmer for allowing me to interview her.)
Written by ZC Communications Intern Alyson Newsome ’27
Sources:
https://www.williams.edu/museum-building-project/museum-design/
https://artmuseum.williams.edu/emancipation/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AYOv_-lfTW0iUrnwxEX3xMYcPJUilN_QK-ia-IpSiWI/edit
https://berkshires.org/events/131572-2/2024-07-13/