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?
I didn’t have any historical baggage until you handed me some, I had no idea about the background to cabinets, sorry – Wunderkammer.
Now I am chuckling and imagining Jen in a bustle holding her parasol to protect her fair skin from the tropical sun and saying “Oh a shrunken head, how delightful”.
@tracy
I was doing some tedious work when your comment came through as an email and made my afternoon! Laughs! Yes, Jen as modern-day Pitt-Rivers (in pith helmet) collecting the strange work of the natives. I like! No Photoshop on my home Mac but would otherwise been tempted to create new visual artefact …
sigh… even I couldn’t resist! http://digitalculture-ed.net/jenr/2009/10/17/oh-a-shrunken-head-how-delightful/