Diane Borsato, Tea Service (Conservators will wash the dishes), 2016
In 2013, as part of her residency at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Borsato hosted a tea tasting ((Bai Hao Yin Zhen white tea (China), Tung Ting oolong (Taiwan), and a dark, 2001 Lahu Wild Trees 1000 years old Pu-erh (China)) for a group of conservators, a registrar, an interpretive planner, a curator, an artist, and an art critic using early 19th century tea cups in the gallery’s collection. Her action re-animated the objects but not in a conventional, didactic, or “museological” way. Restoring the artifact back to a functioning cup prompted a perceptual rupture that changed the status of the object and permitted those closest to them—the conservators—to get more intimate with their beloved artifacts. “Objects on a Table are Hazardous.” (Objects,109) These photographs document moments of this exchange. “You can see that it is not astonishing that objects are easily recognized. They are a chair, table, tea cup…” (Objects, 108)
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