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Materiality Matters: Experiencing the Displayed Object:
exploit this active, two-way engagement between people and things
We should do so not only in order to enrich the ways in which visitors are able to connect with the people, stories and emotions of the past, but for another, more radical reason too. Specifically, we need to recognise that the experiential possibilities of objects are important and objects can often ‘speak’ to us, even when we know nothing about them at all.
Indeed, my suggestion that objects can, sometimes at least, have a voice, a significance, a relevance, a meaning, for visitors without the provision of context and interpretation, would be described by many as obfuscation or fetishism, and even risks accusations of elitism.
Things that fall into a space somewhere in between these two extremes—a space where, although we recognise that, of course, context matters, the thing must not be lost, things must not “dissolve into meanings” (Hein 2006: 2). The emphasis on context must not, in other words, act to inhibit our opportunities to engage with things, even—and here’s the rub—those we know nothing about.
Had the information about the horse been displayed next to it in the form of a label or text panel, I am certain it would have interfered with, even prevented altogether, the powerful and moving reaction I had to the object for its own sake: I would have been distracted by the text…
So what was the value of that initial encounter?
But what about the value of a powerful response to an object just for itself, and not because of how it might enhance learning or appreciation of the wider aspects of an exhibition?
Is there any such value in a museum environment?
Many of us would not question this claim if it concerned only art, or perhaps conceptual art at least—we can accept that the role of such art is precisely to move, shock, amuse or puzzle us, or even to stimulate our acquisitiveness, our desire to possess the object.
My interest is not, however, in Kantian or connoisseurial emphases on “pure, detached, aesthetic” responses to things (O’Neill 2006: 104). In fact I am trying to get at the opposite, at the scope for very personal, very individual, very subjective, very physical and very emotional responses to material things: responses which have the potential to be very powerful indeed, but which are inhibited by so much of what museums do and are expected to do.
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Bodies of Knowledge
The Petrie Museum is partnering with artist Laura Durward in exploring the narratives of the museum’s collections. Join us in sculpting the past as we unlearn the museum’s existing narratives and blur the line between ‘producers’ and ‘receivers’ of history during the booked workshop.
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Interested in archaeology as an inter-relationship with science, landscape, place, etymology, speculation and magic.
Fragmentation through time.
A concerted, parallel knowing and unknowing that seems quite a good mirror for artistic processes.
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Vera Chapters is a project by Kirsty Minns and Erika Muller.
Vera is an ongoing investigation of design, art, literature, creativity, memory, narrative and how we experience our life world. Each new chapter continues to expand Vera’s fictional and collaborative biography through a series of productive, collaborative and, perhaps, combative new potentialities.
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Feeling a way through a set of thoughts, unreliable visions, bits of information and the connections between them, and at the same time working with materials and processes that have some sort of resonance.
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Raise questions about the agency of people, place, and process in creating museum objects, and will involve us in exploration of a very wide range of concepts such as collecting and development of narratives.
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(Camden Arts Centre) Cecilie Gravesen
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Post Workshop Thoughts
Don’t work alone in the workshops: 1 or 2 additional people to help document the process.
Storage rack/cabinet for ceramics to dry.
Workstation for tools and materials.
Don’t have any specific outcomes in mind, you have little to no control over what is produced.
Set parameters and release control to the participants: Decentralise your role.
Document everything.
Start the workshop with a simple question.
Clarity/simplicity is key - many of the workshops I participated in lacked this and thus were difficult to engage with let alone understand.
Where will the many outcomes end up? I left unsatisfied and uninformed for the most part - anti-climax.
Upload the archive of outcomes online and provide details of this when people leave the workshop.
Concentrate down your main intentions.
Words - they don’t work during the actual workshop activities in large quantities. Singular words are fine.
Participants themselves to be the best sources of creative inspiration.
It’s good to have lots of short exercises or tasks.
They will take ownership even if you don’t intend to give it to them - so best to be prepared to go off piste.
Don’t be too prescriptive, provide a framework that is adaptable
Create a frame through which the children can explore further. It is great to let them have individual reactions to art but they need something to pin them on. Even simple things like the name and what it is made of. Kids will take it from there but they do need a starting point.
Anything that you can make hands-on is a total winner. Young people thrive when they are participants in the creative process and not just observers of it.
It is important to think about using open questions. 'Do you like it?' invites a yes/no answer. 'What do you like about it?' invites more.
Think about your adult/young people ratio. This is dependent on what kind of workshop you are running, but you want to ensure you have enough grown-ups on hand.
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PRODUCTION PRODUCTION PRODUCTION @ Tate Exchange
Cut up poetry workshop by Carol Laidler
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PRODUCTION PRODUCTION PRODUCTION @ Tate Exchange
Printing cells workshop run by John Simpson
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PRODUCTION PRODUCTION PRODUCTION @ Tate Exchange
Printing cells workshop run by John Simpson
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PRODUCTION PRODUCTION PRODUCTION @ Tate Exchange
Data workshop run by Andrew Gallacher aka Dr Rillington Strange
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PRODUCTION PRODUCTION PRODUCTION @ Tate Exchange
Data workshop run by Andrew Gallacher aka Dr Rillington Strange
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