PROJECT STATEMENT 1/16/10
Curation as a medium for People-Knowing.
Everyday conversations, daily happenings and the simple choices that a person makes in their lifetime are a part of the human existence. Interesting relationships are made from these experiences. Using curation, editing and organization as a medium, how can we orchestrate an alternate view for people-knowing? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, “curator” is defined as one who has the care and superintendence of something; especially: one in charge of a museum, zoo, or other place of exhibit.
A current artist that has emphasized curation as an art or medium is Fred Wilson–an artist turned curator. Wilson mentions “I am seeing museum space as a constructed kind of design space, as an installation environment. Very much like an artist you’re manipulating objects, light, color, spatial relationships. So I thought perhaps I could manipulate the space, make it kind of a trompe l’oeil of a museum space. Critiquing, as well, the notion of museum.” which has provoked a thought of what other areas can be explored when the curator of the museum/show/gallery collects, creates and curates?
Inspired by the curiosity for the various perspectives in which viewers experience a piece, whether it be object or Art, a curator can assume the role to edit the content accordingly, resulting in a new way to read or view the story.
Through various systems of collecting, curation as a medium for people-knowing is a thesis project that will investigate the use of daily happenings and everyday people as the contents of an exhibition, as well as exploring the diverse roles that a curator can assume in order to collate and present this material. What are the different ways to interview that would facilitate different modes of everyday conversation? Verbalization can be conscious, subconscious, direct or indirect. Through multiple ways of collecting these conversations, —which range from eavesdropped conversations about art at a museum, to direct answers from an interview about life choices, how can limitless content be edited down to display an unconsidered perspective?
In reaction to feeling that art has become less accessible to the public, the thesis project is a way to bring Art back to the people, by having the subjects of their everyday life provoke new perspectives. How can spaces of the future move forward to the antithesis of this current art world? Rather than focusing on the business aspects of what the art industry has become, could it transform into a space where there is no bureaucracy, ego or falsehoods? Pontus Hulten, a curator that has considered the museum an elastic space, discusses how in 1951, “things were infinitely easier then. Paintings didn’t have the value they do today. You could bring a Mondrian to the gallery in a taxicab. One of the shows was held in a bookstore.” How did the industry go from bringing a Mondrian painting to a gallery in a taxicab to current contemporary art becoming an object, not necessarily for the public, but only for the people who can afford it? Rather than putting so much emphasis on how the auction world, collectors and historians place value on artwork–what would happen if the public became essential to the content of the curated space?
Week 10 Diagram.
Where do my projects exist within the Public and Space? What is my interaction? What is my role? Am I intervening, complicating, adding or subtracting?
Week 7 Research Statement
“What are my interests” seems to be question that everyone is asking. As a designer, I feel that I can be interested in anything. “What are my interests” is a bit overwhelming. Growing up as an only child, I could find interest in the most mundane things. At age five, I had a sketchbook full of colored squares. My mother would draw these perfectly spaced grids for me so I could color the spaces to every imaginable color combination possible. Also, my interests are broad—how do I choose and boil them down to what I am “passionate” about? So with the help of a Thesis support group, I started re-thinking how to narrow down the many interests within curation I have aside from the attraction I have towards spatial design and my background within exhibition design. Was there another connection to why I was drawn to curating? I thought back to an eight grade field trip to the United States National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. There was a room filled with the shoes taken from the individuals. As I looked at these shoes, a flood of emotions came over me. I was standing in front of the artifacts taken by the murdered individuals. The possible images, stories went through my head. Who had been wearing these shoes? I thought about how they must have felt when the shoes were taken away. The context in which the shoes were displayed provoked an undeniable reaction.
Using this as inspiration, over the last 6 weeks, I have boiled down some of the interests within curation. Through my Thesis Research, I will be investigating 3 areas involving the interests around Curation, Context, Perspective, Mediation and Narratives.
1. Mediation of context as it relates to curated content
The importance of context within curation. Am I mediating the curation of the objects or mediating the audience?
Constraints of an exhibition. The first constraint is:
Curators perspective. The second, the Designers perspective–What is the companion concept?
2. Deconstructing Narratives; Curating the pieces
How do I combine the affordances of a certain mediums such as documentaries or articles and curate it into an exhibition? By curating the deconstructed pieces? This lead me to experiment with taking one form and forcing it into a different structure using curation as the tool.
3. Designing my own methodology for curation: by integrating curation techniques with design research.
Am I Designing a system for visualization–that can be applied to curation? Deconstruction, Mediation as a curation technique.
Prior Thinkers/projects within the realm of my Thesis Research, which can be seen on my reference page.
Fred Wilson
Sophie Calle
Barbara Probst
Tony Cragg
Significant Objects
Yellow Arrow
Week 5 Research Questions:
“Mediation of Content as it relates to Curated Content”
Week 1 Research Questions:
A map to organize my thesis questions and thoughts.