curation
The beginning of a conversation, setting the topic and offering a story. Setting parameters and selecting objects. Curation’s roots connect it to the act of care for objects. Coming up with the thesis for the show — the guiding notions. Sometimes entails working with a single artist to convey and idea, sometimes working with a group of artists to convey a theme.
exhibit design
Figuring out how to organize the objects while introducing a narrative that appeals to the audience and caters to the user experience. The organization and presentation of objects. Thinking about and helping patrons navigate the space. Thinking of display as a creative medium, and being reflexive about your role. Thinking about context.
interpretive plan
How to interpret the materials and send the message that the team wants. Creates cohesion across exhibition materials and spaces. A high-level document that sets the vision for the exhibit.
racism
comprises a range of practices, beliefs, customs, and phenomena that together have the effect of structurally oppressing one group (or some groups) and privileging another. Can include an institutionalized set of lowered expectation. Racism is entangled with agency — which is not just the decision to do something, but the ability to actually make it happen. Racism has material consequences. Racism is encoded in the law. Racism set expectations for who we are in ways that can really restrain you.
materiality
not just an object but the feelings and the history that go along with an object, and the way that they affect each individual person who interacts with it. The object itself is important, but its context and history are key, and your own ability to embed that object in a narrative. Heidegger: “thingness” includes an object’s fundamental properties — not even just its physical characteristics. Perhaps there’s a spectrum of “realness” that interacts with proximity.
exhibitionary complex
When we enter museum space, we’re conscious of being watched. We “know” how to behave in the space, partly because of the architecture. We become good consumers of state-sanctioned art. When objects are subsumed by the museum, they’re bestowed with the status of canon, meaning that their radical potential is (according to Bennett) defused.
museum
Artifacts (or information) on display. Has to be visitor-facing. A designated space where you come to learn something in a curated way. Sometimes also preserves objects, information, artifacts. Tells a story, creates a narrative. Assumption of scarcity, rare experience. Museums call themselves museums and you can’t buy the stuff! Different notions of what constitutes value. Collection with an overall theme. There’s a relationship of authority between artifacts, visitors, and the museum itself. Museums are keepers of some kinds of knowledge.
artifact
An uttering; a voice. Collected intentionally. Together, they form a collection. Artifacts can capture a moment, an idea. Each individual piece can inspire a certain feeling. Foundation of interpretation; you can’t interpret without a primary source. A physical trace of a historical moment.