Curated by Dr. Sarah Bonnemaison and 11 graduate architecture students from Dalhousie University
At our first meeting Roger Lewis, (Ethnology Curator) said “artifacts are alive, their energy is palpable.” Today, the museum is developing a new space for local communities to simply be with artifacts that are meaningful to them.
We could say that objects have many phases in their lives. They are made by a craftsperson for a purpose - hunting, keeping a door locked, eating. Then they are discarded and much much later, selected by archeologists, or handed over to the museum for safe keeping. Giving Voice is about what happens when an object becomes an artefact. They are rescued from the immense piles of debris and brought into the Museum of Natural History, where they live, where they are taken care off , and contribute to a constantly evolving body of knowledge.
As designers engaged in these issues, it has been our privilege to interpret the place where curators and staff work together. Hence, we created an installation that gives a voice to 11 artifacts chosen by Dr. Katie Cottreau-Robins (Archaeology Curator) from all those in storage. The exhibition is conceived for all ages from interactive “archeological grids”, to texts on banners exploring the poetics of being an artifact, and a video depicting places where artifacts live.
The room is divided in two, a large space with 11 interactive installations, and a ”living room” for simply being with the artifacts from the Museum’s collection. Welcome to Giving Voice, enjoy finding out about the life of these special artifacts from the museum’s collection.
