The title of this post and my groups final piece was taken from Charles R Garoian’s “Performing the museum”. Having pitched our ideas to both our module leaders and the head curator at the Usher and Collection, our ideas became more refined and final. We we’re given feedback to work on and told what elements would work and what wouldn’t. Baring both this and the Charles Garoian reading in mind, our idea began to gain momentum.
Our original idea was to collect broken crockery from the people of lincoln, break it and re create something new entirely. But this didn’t have enough depth or connection to the site.
Garoian compares a museum to Einsteins brain, saying its is something to be preserved but also something to be exhibited. This got us thinking of brains and memories and how they connect to museums, he says “Performing the museum is tantamount to performing memory and cultural history”.
We decided to collect/acquire items that had personal memories attatched to them, and use those items to smash before the performance. Due to certain rules and conditions in the usher and collection, we’re not able to smash the items on site therefore we have decided to film it and project it during the cataloging section on the first performance day. On the second performance day, we will be recreating our own version of the phrenology diagram on either a 3D skull or 2D trace.
We feel that bringing Garoians ideas of theatre of memory and the connections with museums string our piece together and really engage with the site.
Works cited
Garoian, Charles R. (2001) Performing the Museum. Studies in Art Education, 42, (3) 234-248.