Brainstorming Notes:
Topic ideas to explore:
- Kitschy travel souvenirs, we collect souvenirs when we travel
- What does this say about us, and about what we think about other places?
- Why do we collect? Why do we travel?
- What sorts of things were popular to collect? What sorts of things are popular to collect now?
- Similarities and differences between collecting then and now
- Connect Victorian culture to now through common theme of collecting souvenirs: it is relevant to today while still being about the objects collected in the Victorian era
- How were things carried? How did objects travel? How did people travel?
- Exhibition could look like a marketplace, visually overwhelming, stuff everywhere, variety of colors, shapes, things …
- How do objects become meaningful? What objects become meaningful? What gives objects meaning?
- Kitschy things can be put in a museum and they don’t look so kitschy anymore
- Mary Ann was “collecting culture” as she traveled. This is something we still do today. Buying things when we travel.
- Collecting souvenirs as part of collecting experiences? Collecting memories?
- How do collections start?
- Travel component is important
- Why are we fascinated by stuff from elsewhere? (otherness, Orientalism, history of museums)
- For people who can’t travel, think about: general obsession with objects, what do we keep?
- We don’t know what of the collection is real, authentic, where it all came from, was any of it acquired at auctions? She bought some stuff in the place where it’s from, but some of it was acquired at the Centennial Exhibition.
Brainstorm location for exhibition:
- Airport (actually, physically in an airport) Animal!
- Train station (i.e., 30th Street, Union Station)
- How much do we have to plan the travel route of the exhibition? Not all places have major transportation centers.
- Does it have to go to the same kind of venue each place it goes?
- Who is the target audience? Travelers. But we also want our exhibition to be a destination. And we want people who can’t travel to be interested.
Brainstorm activities:
- Duty free zone
- How do you choose what to buy in the gift shop?
- Where have you been?
- What do you collect?
More brainstorming notes:
Big Ideas: Travel, journey (of people and of objects).
One goal: Visitors will question the meaning of their personal collections.
Context determines whether or not an object is valuable. Do people who make kitschy souvenirs think they are making something valuable? But it is valuable when you take it home.
How understanding of culture has changed over time.(Seeing objects brought back from somewhere else used to be the primary way of learning about culture)
Culture is shared through sharing of objects
Collecting experiences. Representing these experiences with objects.
Collecting experiences = creating yourself
A person’s journey to acquire an object gives the object personal meaning.
What about people who travel to a specific place with the specific purpose of acquiring something specific?
What’s the difference between travelling to a place to personally buy an object vs. buying from a dealer?
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