A Wider View: Amie Siegel's Panorama and the Role of Contemporary Art in Natural History Museum Critique and Practice

ABSTRACT In Panorama , artist Amie Siegel montaged films made by Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) staff in the 1930s–1970s when documenting their research expeditions and exhibition projects, along with her own footage shot in the museum. Displayed at Carnegie Museum of Art in 2023–2024, the exhibition made visible the often hidden labors of research and fabrication in museums and stirred questions about the representation of the natural world, especially in wildlife dioramas. This reflective analysis, written by a current CMNH staff member, focuses on insights gained among colleagues at CMNH during the installation and their broader relevance to the field. Panorama exemplifies the potential of interdisciplinary, archival projects and artistic interventions for confronting urgent challenges facing natural history museums, especially the need for transparency about the fact that animals are sometimes hunted and euthanized for collection and display and that museum expeditions benefit, directly and indirectly, from histories and legacies of colonialism.