curatorial
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TEAPOTS, Steeped in History was a collaborative virtual exhibition developed for the MMSt program.
The teapots from China, Japan and England in this virtual exhibition are presented as metaphors of shifting historical global powers – injustice, socio-political, cultural, and economic inequities. This interpretive approach disrupts the visitor’s expectations of a linear ‘teapot history’. It is hard to imagine that teapots are part of a darker history. And yet, tea culture in the west became a lucrative opportunity for colonial powers and corporate empires to advance global ambitions. |
Exhibitions are collaborative endeavours. Content experts, interpretive planners, writers, editors, designers, photographers, and installation crew work together in the fulfillment of a museum's mission. In my early curatorial work and writing, I employed a traditional art historical lens: formal innovation in the artwork of a single artist.
In TEAPOTS, however, a social justice lens reframes artworks/items through meaningful contemporary issues. From Big Idea to selection of genre for public facing texts, an exhibition answers the viewer's question, "so what?" with ideas and information relevant to their personal experiences. |
