This thesis takes the conservator as a starting point to explore more-than-human aspects of the museum of modernity. Assuming that built-in obstacles impinge when museums today deal with environmental issues‚ it investigates new and alternative perspectives on the engagement with our immediate surroundings, in this case the museum objects. 

The objective of this study is to map museum processes hidden in the anthropocentric museum of modernity. The aim is to broaden the perspective on the museum to include what the museum structures of modernity have pushed aside: ongoing processes and becomings, and the myriad of energetic more-than-human agencies and temporalities constantly at work in a museum.

The main empirical material consists of interviewes with conservators working in different departements and museums in Sweden. This material also includes my own experiences of working as a conservator and as an exhibition producer in various museums. There is a particular focus on the care of objects performed by conservators. The material also includes Swedish Government Official Reports (SOU) and one central text from the Ministry Publications Series (Ds). Furthermore, more-than-human agencies play an important role: enacted through the museum apparatus in shape of humidity and silverfish.

Posthuman theory, environmental humanities and material feminism form the overarching theoretical framework as well as provide the analytical tools. Three main themes from these theoretical areas run throughout the entire thesis: anthropocentrism, more-than-human agency, dualistic thinking and dichotomies. All of which are applied to the empirical material.  

To conclude, museums have been part of modernity’s ambitions and ideals since they were established just over 100 years ago. This thesis shows how, in the structures of the museum, modernity’s ideas have persisted. Furthermore, these structures of thought appear and interfere, inter alia, in the conservator’s experiences of and thoughts about their work and professional identity. However, when working intimately with the museum objects more-than-human relational processes and other productive connections emerge, whereby the structures, derived from moderity’s thinking, are challenged in productive ways. This forms the line of flight that the title refers to; here perceived as a possibility for change, in a direction that could promote new ways for museums to tackle complex more-than-human issues, such as climate change and environmental matters.