In the early days of my PhD research, I would sit for hours deep in the archives of the British Museum, carefully turning the worn and brittle pages of books and journals written during the nineteenth century.
This is fascinating! Thanks for reading and for sending this along. Gets me thinking about the relationship between exhibition design and experiences. Will follow your lead and dig deeper.
Love this—a renewed appreciation for the tactile and tangible really does feel like it’s in the air.
There's room for both: the curated exhibit to focus, and the open warehouse to wander. I love having the option. Serendipity wins either way--the curated exhibit has depth on a subject I may not have thought to explore yet. And the open warehouse lets me stumble (hopefully, not literally) on interesting objects to ponder.
This piece unearthed a few connective thoughts:
The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA plays with the idea of personal collections as the foundation of public wonder—and of museums as we know them.
Maria Popova also recently emphasized the importance of physically going into archives for research, rather than relying on online sources alone—not everything has been digitized. https://youtu.be/yb9Tz-RQFN4?si=3k95lBsXl3Sd2hGm
This was such a great post, Robyn! Thank you for asking and sharing some of my thoughts on curation and the longing that comes from not having everything on view. Your work continues to inspire me!
This is fascinating! Thanks for reading and for sending this along. Gets me thinking about the relationship between exhibition design and experiences. Will follow your lead and dig deeper.
Love this—a renewed appreciation for the tactile and tangible really does feel like it’s in the air.
There's room for both: the curated exhibit to focus, and the open warehouse to wander. I love having the option. Serendipity wins either way--the curated exhibit has depth on a subject I may not have thought to explore yet. And the open warehouse lets me stumble (hopefully, not literally) on interesting objects to ponder.
This piece unearthed a few connective thoughts:
The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA plays with the idea of personal collections as the foundation of public wonder—and of museums as we know them.
Maria Popova also recently emphasized the importance of physically going into archives for research, rather than relying on online sources alone—not everything has been digitized. https://youtu.be/yb9Tz-RQFN4?si=3k95lBsXl3Sd2hGm
And, on the subject of how ideas are physically presented through invisible design, one of my favorite recent Substack reads is this piece on exhibition anatomy: https://theobjectlabels.substack.com/p/the-anatomy-of-an-exhibition
This was such a great post, Robyn! Thank you for asking and sharing some of my thoughts on curation and the longing that comes from not having everything on view. Your work continues to inspire me!