Manifesting shared ownership of our planet: How does Sir David Attenborough’s 360 experience make the viewer feel?
- Louise ODriscoll
- Aug 2, 2025
- 2 min read
I was lucky to be invited to the opening of Our Story with Sir David Attenborough, an immersive space hosted in the Jerwood Gallery, within the Natural History Museum, London.
The 360 film, projected across four walls, presents a calm but urgent space to consider the state of the world and our place within it.
The exhibition begins in darkness, with Attenborough’s voice guiding us through Earth’s creation, evolution, and the rise of humanity. From walking alongside gorillas to watching the moon landing and early technologies emerge, we are reminded that our greatest advances have always been shaped by our relationship with the planet. Guests sit across benches or are free to walk the room whilst listening to one of the world’s most loved voices share an important call of shared responsibility for our world.
“A sustainable future is within reach. Indeed, we can already imagine what this future world would look like.”
The exhibition is not designed to shock. Instead, it quietly draws you into a conversation about responsibility, repair, and the possibility of a different future. Attenborough’s narration encourages visitors to see themselves not as bystanders, but as individuals of the Earth. The message is not one of blame. It is an invitation. A reminder that our intelligence is not the problem, but the solution.
“I see us as problem solvers,” he says. “Smart enough to achieve anything we put our minds to. That is our superpower.”
The exhibition showcases practical and active solutions that are already in motion. From regenerative farming to low-carbon design, it makes clear that innovation is happening around the world. These are not abstract proposals. They are examples of progress, often driven by communities and individuals working with nature rather than against it.
By retracing these global milestones, the exhibition cultivates a sense of shared ownership. It doesn’t isolate blame but instead connects each viewer to the arc of civilisation. Through quiet urgency and visual clarity, it invites us to remember that this story is not someone else’s.
“Of the one hundred billion or so humans that have ever existed, it is those that are alive today that can build this future. It’s a huge challenge, but if we cooperate and communicate, as only humans can, we have the most wonderful world to look forward to.”
That act of imagining is powerful. It challenges us to move beyond awareness and into participation. To understand that a restored planet will not come from a single breakthrough, but from many people making informed choices and demanding systems that reflect care for the living world.
“This could be the next chapter of our story. A time when we and our earth are finally back on the same page.”
The exhibition closes with that sentence, not as an ending, but as a beginning. Visitors generally left speaking aloud on their new calling to become not just witnesses to a changing world, but contributors to its repair.
Learn more about Our Story here: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/our-story-with-david-attenborough.html
