WHY REPEAT THE PAST: SPADINA HOUSE'S GATSBY GARDEN PARTY

PROGRAM REVIEWS

BY: SAMANTHA KILPATRICK

The Great Gatsby Garden party hosted by the Spadina House Museum is an era-appropriate bash held in a beautiful outdoor garden every year in late June. Running since 2014, this event has exploded into a success for the museum, as well as a social media phenomenon in its own right. This year, the weather was damper than preferable for an event that advertises itself as a picnic as much as a party, but the drizzle didn’t stop hundreds of people turning up for the event.

Attendees at the grey and cheerful Gatsby Garden Party (Spadina House). Photo courtesy of Samantha Kilpatrick.

The main event is a bring-your-own-food-picnic in advertising, but in truth is a meandering, cheerful wander through Spadina House’s grounds, doubling back and back again. Dotted across the grounds were vendors and historic society booths, offering to take your picture or quiz you on the uses of historic silver wear implements. Spadina House also had a pair of bands playing music, as well as an array of vintage gramophones playing to make the event sound the part of a party in the 20s.

One of two bands playing the Gatsby Garden
party, trying to stay dry (Spadina
House), photo courtesy of the Samantha Kilpatrick..

For the more involved, there was also a gambling den, a chance to learn several 20s dances on the dance floor under a tent, a screening of several silent movies courtesy of the Toronto Silent Film Society, and the opportunity to play croquette.

Vendors sold food and drinks, and many of them offered themed items. Chau offered, among others, ‘Daisy’s Dainty Tea Sandwiches,’ and Crystal Head Vodka, a sponsor of the event, offered several themed drinks, including the ‘across the bay’ cocktail. This, of course, was green. Throughout the entire event, there were also those who brought their own food, and had set up picnic blankets and were enjoying the event in jackets and dresses and headbands and hats.

I would like now to dwell on the other attendees because the other attendees are worth remarking on. Of the hundreds of people I saw at the party, only a dozen or so made no attempt to dress for the event at all. To be fair, my perhaps generous definition of ‘dressing for the event’ runs the gamut from ‘wearing an old-fashioned dress and a necklace as a headband,’ all the way to button-perfect recreations of suits and dresses. Some of the more creative and adventurous party goers came dressed as 20’s police officers, or aviators, (and one Charlie Chapman) and many were chattering happily with others about how they created their costumes.

The dance floor at the Great Gatsby Garden Party, where the wide array of costumes can be seen. (Spadina House). Video curtosy of Samantha Kilpatrick..

Again, the vast majority made some effort- this is not to say that everyone came in pink suits with straw hats, but that even most of the men found a pastel collared shirt and a pair of khakis to take pictures in. It created an atmosphere not only of a party but also a shared, secret experience, common only to the hundreds of other people at the party. I should, now, admit that I was one of these costumed attendees. There seemed no better way to experience the event than enthusiastically, without reservation, and with an additional dozen hours of work to create an era-appropriate costume before the event itself. 

The author (left), and Elizabeth Patti, maker of these dresses, and companion to the event (right). Photo taken on Spadina House porch, by fellow attendees. Photo courtesy of author.

A side effect of this mass costuming is the feeling that the experience of this party starts well before the event itself. For one thing, there is always the delightful ride on public transit in period dress, and the attempt to suss out whether or not your fellow passengers are simply dressed well or attending the same event. If you have never ridden public transit in costume before, I recommend the experience highly. It is in my experience, an event that brings you much closer to those who you are riding with, and makes you acutely aware of how comfortable you are with being stared at. As you draw closer and closer to the party, you begin spotting more ropes of pearls, and boater hats, and long dripping 20s shawls. It creates an atmosphere of anticipation and mutual excitement, this spotting of other partygoers, that is difficult to describe except to someone who has experienced a similar event.

Even before the ride itself, of course, there is not inconsiderable effort if you are one of those attending in more dedicated period dress. There is the effort of looking up historic photos, illustrations, or advertisements to attempt to find inspiration and ideas. There is the scouring of thrift stores, fabric stores, flea markets, or the back of one’s closet in search of a material you can wear or transform into something era-appropriate. There is the negotiation of ‘close enough’, where compromises are made to make outfits more fun, or flattering. Drop-waist 20s style dresses have the same tendency that high-waisted regency gowns do, to make the wearer look slightly pregnant. Many attendees opted to nip the actual waist of the dress in slightly, to create a more modern silhouette while maintaining much of the look of the 20s.

This pre-event energy is something that Spadina house plays into quite consciously. Spadina Museum has an incredibly robust social media presence, and their Instagram, as well as their Facebook page, has been promoting the event with great humour and success. Pictures from previous years, two-minute etiquette guides, and daily posts meant to run a countdown to when the tickets went on sale all served to heighten the excitement. It’s an annual event that’s a roaring success, and Spadina House has seized it as their blockbuster event of the year.

The event this year was a delight to attend, and I can’t wait to see how Spadina house harnesses this energy again next year.

A FUTURE TO IMAGINE FOR

PROGRAM REVIEWS

BY: SAMANTHA KILPATRICK

For the inaugural edition of the #ProgramReviews column, I attended a talk called The Evolving Role Of Museums hosted by the Aga Khan Museum on May 9th, 2018. Michael Edson, co-founder of the still-forming United Nations museum, UN Live. Edson gave a lecture about the evolving role of museums for the upcoming International Museums Day, as part of the Aga Khan Museum’s Changing Perceptions Series.

Formerly director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian, Edson gave a wide-ranging and energetic talk, where at one point he organized a rock paper scissors competition with the entire audience. I expected, at the end of this competition, for him to speak about the power of statistics, and that it is exceedingly improbable that any individual would win, but that it was inevitable that someone would. Instead, he spoke briefly about the power of play to activate learning, and then showed us this video:

He used this as a launching off point to talk about the three dimensions in which the world has shifted rapidly in scope, scale, and speed- the problems of globalization and rapid automation that are shaping the world in ways which no one, not museums, not nations, not individuals, yet understands. What then, is UN Live to become?

The goal of UN Live, as Edson explained it, is not to be an institution which would educate its visitors about the history of the UN. The museum is instead constructed around about the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and to encourage anyone who comes into contact with the museum to go forth and make progress towards these goals in their own communities.

The UN's 17 sustainability goals for 2030. Source.

He said that when people see these goals for the first time, they often laugh at the sheer audacity of them. End poverty everywhere? Peace and justice everywhere? In a scant twelve years? And yet, there is a near global consensus that this is important work that someone, somewhere ought to be doing. So why not have a UN museum, one which uses the institutional strength of the United Nations not only to push for these goals but to encourage everyone, everywhere, to be the someone, somewhere that works towards fulfilling them.

The challenge, as Edson framed it, was not to educate. We do not, he reminded us all, act because we have a lack of information available to us. People continue to smoke well after they know the adverse effects of smoking. The challenge of UN Live is to encourage people to engage with the goals of the UN and to embody them in their own lives and their own communities. UN Live seeks to build within people the habits of community engagement and democracy. Their role is to be the United Nations “at eye level” with the citizens of the world, and to help people understand and act on these goals in the language of everyday life.

The ways one can encounter UN Live, which Edson promises are getting equal love and attention, are the physical location in Copenhagen, its network with other public institutions all over the world, and a digital museum. Edson’s former role, as director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian, will doubtless help him in this pursuit. Each of these, of course, will maintain as part of its mission and in every step of the design, a bridge between information and action. Part of the mission is not to ensure that every person who interacts with UN live leaves to solve a world problem, but to find, elevate, and assist the changemakers that already exist in every community. UN Live seeks to change the encounter rate of those brilliant, inspiring people we all know, from one in a million to two or three in a million, and to help those change makers, creatives, leaders to effect change more efficiently. Edson bounced back and forth from grand sweeping statements about the way the world should be, to specific steps UN Live was taking to help that change happen with such rapidity it at times gave me goosebumps.

Michael Edson, at the Aga Khan Museum. Source.

I will leave you with this, although this is not how Edson closed the talk. He said that neither the UN or the concept of the museum was a concept that always elicits cheers from your audience. But, no matter how they resent one or both concepts, when you call on behalf of the UN Museum, people always return your calls. It’s a weighty responsibility, and that we as future museum professionals ourselves should be conscious of. Very few of us will ever work for an institution with as much cultural gravity as the UN, but institutions have power. Institutions have reputations and weight and gravity, and whether or not they are liked, they are respected and listened to. We would all do well to remember that this is not an abstract concept. Why shouldn't a museum, for instance, partner with Elections Canada and help people register to vote? Why shouldn't a museum not only have and use green energy but also host events where visitors can learn to plant their own green roofs. It all felt possible, while Edson spoke. He speaks with the kind of passion that can move mountains, and perhaps more impressively, people.

The overwhelming feeling I had leaving The Evolving Role of Museums lecture was one of hope. Hope as a motivator, a driver, as a source of strength. I could practically feel it beating against my chest as I left. As a program host, could you imagine a better way for your attendees to leave?