I’ve been having an interesting exchange with Jen about the cabinet of curiosities recently.

Although it comes carrying some big, heavy ideological baggage, the concept seems attractive still to a lot of visual ‘creatives’ drawn to the idea of a space in which to display in close physical proximity a range of artefacts.

Here’s a cabinet of curiosities from my friend Jake, who’s an illustrator:

I texted him last night for a picture of his cabinet of curiosities and got the reply “Wot? Cabinet wot?”. Was Jake feigning ignorance as part of a comic distancing himself from what the Wunderkammer represents? Is it possible to rethink the notion of a display space for disparate/dissonant artefacts of idiosyncratic interest purged of historical baggage?