Praxis #1: Curation and Annotation for the Museum of Resistance and Resilience (Group Project)

Museum Segment: Past Times/Spaces of Protest

Due Week 6, Sept 23 with in class presentation and individual reflection (20% of final grade)

We know from our readings and viewings that museums and the act of curation are not neutral. There is a process of selection that centers particular narratives, marginalizes or erases other stories, and often reinforces difference as stereotyped blocks of “otherness” rather than complex experiences amongst equals. As we build our Museum of Resistance and Resilience this semester we want to be mindful of ensuring a space of care and focused on building an inclusive community, which following Audre Lorde explores and embraces difference across the nuances of experiences of race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, age, disability, etc. Our Museum will be a celebration of the struggle for global human rights. It will be anti-racist and in opposition to oppression, a site collecting and annotating resistant and resilient responses to what bell hooks describes as “dominator culture.”

Curation is usually organized around a particular theme and while our class has an overall theme of “Protest” this can take shape as “resistance” and/or “resilience” in any number of historical or cultural forms. Our first project asks you to work on assembling and annotating materials for a section of the museum focused on Past Protests/Places (events prior to 2000).

Using our platform of Scalar as our “museum” space, your group will select and post 6 objects with annotations. You have the core theme of protest, but the place, the specific response, and cultural form it takes is of your choosing (music, fashion, sports, comics, etc). You will have a mini exhibition or “show” with a total of 6 objects. Post an image, video, audio, or text for each object selected on an individual page with a brief description of the object and the artist/s involved. You will then annotate elements of each of the objects to help us understand why you have selected this object. When you have completed all six objects, please organize the materials on a page or pages with a brief description of your theme and why the objects were selected to be collected together for the theme and exhibition. This can be a paragraph or two but be clear on your theme and how the six objects work to fit the theme and fit together.

If you use multiple pages in Scalar for displaying your exhibit, then use a main page for your description (can use one or more objects also) and then use that page for your main path link.  Other pages should then be a path under your main page/path.

You should post your main page as a path (and sub paths as needed) underneath the Curation and Annotation page. Hover over the top left corner of home page to get the link to that page.

Your group will present your work in class on the September 23.  By the evening of 23rd at midnight you should post an individual reflection in the folder for the assignment (Praxis #1).