SO LONG, FAREWELL, AU REVOIR: GOODBYE LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

  Letter from the Editors | Jaime Meier and Erika Serodio

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Today is the last day of mine and Erika’s reign as Editors-in-Chiefs and while we are sad to bid everyone adieu, we are excited to look back at the articles created by our talented team of writers. Over the past year we had 16 fantastic permanent and guest writers to cover a huge variety of museum topics, from collections to MMSt classes. If you weren’t able to catch all of our publications, we have made a list of highlights. 

We appreciate your ongoing support! | Courtesy of Jaime Meier

For Collections Corner, Martin interviewed recent CDP grad, Karen Macke, to discuss her collections related insights and her hugely popular Facebook group that focuses on collections. 

Madison brought fresh perspectives to the Heritage Moments column with her article on preserving historic scents and their important place as intangible heritage. 

With the pandemic changing how we view exhibitions, Rachel brought us comforting Exhibition Reviews, such as the “Three-Thirty” show at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, and how cultural institutions are seeking to adapt rather than cease creation. 

Brooke made our Research Column better than ever with her in-depth series on critical conversations happening in museum and the rights of museum workers that have been challenged by “neoliberal economic strategies” and ongoing resistance from museum workers. 

For Museum Innovations, Sara brought us examples of how the cultural sector has continued to engage communities on new platforms like Twitch and Tiktok. 

Annabelle highlighted the Jewish community's many accomplishments through Walk of Fame, including the crucial role of Frieda Schiff Warburg in the creation of the Jewish Museum in New York City, one of the first and oldest to focus on Jewish history. 

For Internship Check-in, Annie brought us the inside scope on working in cultural institutions, including Lauren at the Royal Botanical Gardens and Leora at the Robertson Davies Library. 

Caitlin created a new column, Final Project Reflections, to highlight the many accomplishments of students completing their thesis and exhibition projects, including her own and the inspiration behind it. 

For Technology Tuesday, Jaime explored what the future holds for interpretation in museums after the pandemic ends and many of the new approaches significantly aid in accessibility for all visitors. 

Melissa used GLAM Gets Mindful to bring us resources to help in our success and reduce stress, with a very timely one with tips on how to conquer job search anxiety. 

We have been so lucky to have Museum Professionals of Colour contribute a Special Edition each season, with their most recent article highlighting their successes and delivering handcrafted memes. 

The MUSSA President & Co-President also contributed a Special Edition where they gathered and shared student experiences from working in the field and all of our wonderful memories together. 

Natalie is a student like none-other and wrote for two whole columns, Sew What and A Muse Bouche. She delved into her Italian heritage to explore and re-create disappearing pasta forms and also explored the sustainable history of 18th century clothing through fabric reusing - the duality! 

Erika continued to highlight outside-the-box spaces for arts and culture, like Underpass Park, in the Beyond Tradition column.

In Museum Mysteries, Mia has kept us wildly entertained with stories of horror, fictional fantasy, and eerie holiday traditions. 

Helen took us to museums all around the world with Musings Abroad, where she looked at how international museums work with topics like black culinary culture, scents, and women's history. 

Source

It has been a very "online" year for all of us, with museums closed for the majority of our school year. Finding inspiration to write has been challenging and has made the accomplishments of this year's writers even more impressive. We look forward to someday running into each other in museums again, and finally meeting the writers who we've been working with all year but have never met in person. The articles from this year will be remembered as small tokens of resilience. We know it has been anything but easy and we are so very grateful for everyone that's written with us and followed along. 

Signing off,

Jaime & Erika

MUSEUMS AS PLATFORMS IN A POST COVID WORLD

 Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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The many closures and lockdowns of this past year have forced museums to literally think outside their boxes. Museums have long been considered containers for the many artifacts and objects that tell stories about culture. As museums lost access to those containers this year, their storehouses became just that – places for objects, not people. There is mounting pressure to rethink the ways that these institutions engage with culture. A shift from object-based collections to visitor-centred programming is not a new idea in museums. However, a shift from the museum container to museum as platform has become an essential idea for a post-covid world.

Platforms can take us many places | Sources

Earlier this week I attended a zoom panel that was part of the Bihar Museum Biennale. The title of the panel was “Container vs Platform: Museum as an open space for conversation.” The panelists spoke of the importance of this idea in visitor research studies and how not so long ago, the idea of museums being for people was radical. The shift in thinking throughout the last few decades has been gradually moving in this direction, but the pandemic has heightened the need for urgent change in the museum sector.

The Cooper Hewitt responded to this critical moment for museums by convening with over a dozen museum professionals to create a toolkit titled “Tools and Approaches for Transforming Museum Experience.” In the toolkit, the authors describe the necessity and direction for change as follows:

“The rapidly shifting conditions of this past year have disrupted the sense of safety and familiarity offered by the creation and re-creation of formulaic museum experiences, but have not yet resulted in the kind of self-aware examination necessary for museums to break out of the hierarchical paradigms reinforced by those formulas. How might we interrogate the idea that expertise should be seated squarely in the hands of museum experts, or that audiences should learn from us instead of the other way around?”

Museums all over the world are finally asking their communities, their visitors, what they want to engage with and how. The Bentway has recently released a new initiative for its community called Digital and/as Public Space. The project, still in its development phase, invites anyone to contribute ideas on what it could and should be through a digital platform called Are.na. (You need to make an account to access it, but it’s free and easy and I highly recommend checking it out.)

Many museums have been transitioning to the platform mentality long before physical institutions were forced to close their doors. And some museums have formed without any building at all. Myseum of Toronto, Toronto’s museum without walls, creates programming and exhibits that incorporate the community at every step. Everyone is invited to share ideas, stories, art, music, and artifacts with the museum for its future programming. The Myseum website claims that "the more you get involved, the better the experience of Myseum will be." 

Places for people Source

The future of museums is unclear right now but it's exciting. The pandemic has created an opportunity for a wild reimagining of cultural institutions that will centre on visitors like never before. And we certainly aren't short on ideas. 

UPCOMING ONLINE EVENTS TO KEEP YOU INSPIRED

Friday Special | Erika Serodio

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As Toronto settles into this new phase of pandemic lockdown, we hope you're finding ways to stay engaged and inspired in the museum world. Here are a few free events you can attend from home in the coming weeks. Stay strong, friends. There are so many real world museum experiences waiting for us on the other side. In the meantime...

Saturday, November 28th, 6:00 to 8:00 PM — Beyond the Block: A Celebration

The final event in a digital series presented by the Toronto Ward Museum will feature live music, spoken word performances, a live trivia game, and video storytelling.

Register here

Toronto Sculpture Garden | Source

Tuesday, December 1st, 1:15 to 3:00 PM —Becoming Public Art: Temporary Programming

After a historical presentation on the Toronto Sculpture Garden, major voices in temporary public art programming will discuss the significance of the project and its impact on projects that came after it.

Register here



Wednesday, December 2nd, 1:00 to 2:00 PM —Where is the love? 

The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) has brought three artists and researchers together to discuss the exhibition Losing Venus. Through this exhibition, they will consider how ethnographic museum collections can bring emotion, intimacy, care, and love into their work. 

Register here



Thursday, December 3rd, 7:30 to 9:00 PM — A Virtual “Music in the Museum”

The American University Museum at the Kaizen Arts Centre will be live streaming an iconic bytebeat duo performance between Washington, DC and Toronto.

Register here



Friday, December 4th, 9:00 to 10:00 PM — DISplace Curator’s Talk

The Five Oaks Museum provides a platform for culturally embedded storytelling with this conversation between curators who will share personal stories alongside the research of this online exhibition.

Register here



Sunday, December 6th, 4:00 to 5:00 PM — Counter Attack: Artists and Curators Creating Change

New Wave brings together four artists and curators to discuss the roles they play in challenging dominant cultural narratives and institutional practices. 

Register here

Abstract Work by Rothko | Source

Tuesday, December 8th, 7:00 to 8:00 PM — Driven to Abstraction: A Panel Discussion on Art & Authenticity in Practice

Join what is sure to be a lively discussion with art world experts who will discuss the recent documentary Driven to Abstraction which looks at an $80 million forgery scandal in a New York City gallery.

Register here



Friday, December 11th, 9:00 to 11:00 AM — Museums and Digital Culture after the Pandemic

This online symposium will look at how museums adapted to changes during the pandemic and what the new future of digital will look like in museums after the pandemic.

Register here

FREE UPCOMING TALKS AND EVENTS THAT ARE (SHOCKINGLY) ONLINE

 Friday Special | Erika Serodio

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Lately, I’ve been trying to think about those things that were hard in a pre-pandemic world and are easier now. Things like commuting to class in the morning, spending all afternoon working in the library, and then really dreading that evening workshop or lecture I had previously added to my agenda. Sometimes I would just call it a day and go home instead of attending. I promise myself that when this is all over, I’m never going to be home again. Catch me at every social engagement, evening lecture, etc. etc., forever, for the rest of my life, cross my heart and hope to die. But until then, I’m telling myself, isn’t it nice that after a long day of sitting at my desk, I can curl up on my couch with a bowl of popcorn (glass of wine) and attend a lecture with outstanding museum professionals from all over the world? A past version of myself would have loved this. Current me – a silver lining. 

A Silver Lining | Source

Anyway, join me in making the most of this twisted world. And remember that if you make it to that zoom lecture, and you decide that A. you've been zooming enough lately, or B. it's not your thing, oops!  Technical difficulties! Back to Netflix. But I do hope you find something in this list that you enjoy. And I invite you to link to any other interesting events in the comments section. 

ETHEL and Friends: Balcony Bar from Home

Start your Friday night off right with the Met’s resident string quartet playing live in your living room:

Friday, October 23, 2020 (& every Friday for the rest of 2020)
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM EST
Free admission


Becoming Public Art: Working Models & Case Studies for Art in Public

Spend your Tuesday afternoons learning from industry experts on the forces shaping public art making today. Presented by the City of Markham and ART+PUBLIC UnLtd. 

October 13 to December 8, 2020
Every Tuesday from 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM EST
Free admission, Registration required


Rayyane Tabet / Alien Property: In Light of What We Know Now

Sit in on a conversation between Met curators and contemporary artist Rayyane Tabet as they consider how their perspectives on an exhibition have changed with respect to global events this past year. 

Wednesday, October 28, 2020
6 PM EST
Free admission, Registration required


ART CONNECTS | Fall Reading Session With Indigenous Brilliance

Join Afuwa, Emily Dundas Oke, Jónína Kirton, and Michelle Sylliboy for a poetic and artistic response to the Vancouver Art Gallery's current exhibition: Uncommon Language. 

Thursday, October 29, 2020
7 PM EST (4 PM PST)
Free admission

Innovate: Public Spaces with Silo Studio

Visit with a curator from the Victoria & Albert Museum and two London-based designers who focus on designing for community spaces. 

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

12 PM EST (5 PM UK)

Free admission

AGO Live: Brendan Fernandes: The Left Space

This choreographed performance will use the grid formation of zoom to connect a team of dancers from their homes around the world, while engaging with the language of protests in our current time of global political uprisings. An interview between the artist and curator will follow.

Friday, November 6, 2020
7 PM EST
Free admission, Registration required

THE UNEXPECTED AT UNDERPASS PARK

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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As the second wave case numbers climb all around me, I’m feeling more anxious about the upcoming winter that will largely be spent at home. I am not ready to be kept inside. Finding destinations and things to do where we feel both safe and excited is going to get harder. It’s a relief to see that Toronto museums have so far remained open, but it feels like we are all holding our breath. 

Farmers Market at Underpass Park | Source

Last night, the final farmers market of the season took place at Underpass Park, another sign of the end of the outdoor season. However, this unexpected outdoor art space will remain open. I have biked through Underpass Park once before, but I have not yet stopped to take it all in. I’ve been saving it, placed a bookmark on its page, for a day when I’m in need of inspiration and my indoor worlds have closed. I recommend you do the same.

Underpass Park by Rick Harris | Source

Underpass Park officially opened in Toronto in 2012. Before then, it was simply the space below the Eastern Ave, Richmond, and Adelaide Street overpasses. The 2.5 acre park was designed by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg with the Planning Partnership as a project of Waterfront Toronto. The main intention of the project was to transform a derelict space into an active community hub. Since its inception, Underpass Park has hosted performances, skateboarding events, music videos, and dance routines. In 2016, the American Society of Landscape Architects recognized the achievements of the Underpass Park project with their Award of Excellence.

Mirage by Paul Raff | Source

In their design, the existing structure of the underpass was reimagined with specific lighting and artworks integrated throughout the site. The addition of programmed LED lights brightens the space in artistic ways while also providing a safer night time experience in the park. A notable artwork in the park is that of Toronto artist and architect, Paul Raff. His piece, titled Mirage, is made of 57 mirror-like panels suspended from the underside of the overpass. The public can interact with the piece by playing with their own hovering reflections. The ceilings created by the overpasses are unexpected places for art, but they also act as weather protection for the entire site. Graffiti is encouraged on the pillars throughout the park, but this is just one of the many ways that the site invites users to participate in the creation of public space. 

A PANDEMIC TIME CAPSULE

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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At the beginning of April, as the world I knew closed its doors, I read something that has stayed with me. George Saunders, an English professor at Syracuse University, wrote a letter to his students that was published in The New Yorker. In his letter, he described the pandemic as an event "where all of the drama is happening in private." He asked his students, urgently, “Are you keeping records of the e-mails and texts you’re getting, the thoughts you’re having, the way your hearts and minds are reacting to this strange new way of living?” The records you keep, Saunders advised them, will convince future generations of what happened to us.

Time Capsule | Source

This sentiment seems so important to me as I continue to question the future of museums. I wondered how this pandemic would be remembered by others in the future and around the world. And I wondered how the local experiences of this pandemic would be different from each other. How could museums foster this kind of remembering as the pandemic is happening? Especially while museum doors remained closed. The pandemic has forced so many of us to live moment to moment. It is not as easy as it sounds to record our feelings and fears right now.

Remember | Source

I recently came across a project designed by The Bentway. Their city-wide public art installation is a brilliant answer to George Saunders’ demand for records of the pandemic. The Bentway commissioned twenty Toronto artists to respond to the question: “What words are you living by right now?” The artists responded with illustrated words that were projected on billboards, painted on building walls, and plastered on trucks that drove through the city. The project is called #ItsAllRightNow. The next phase of the project asks the public to respond to the same question and submit their words. In 2021, these public submissions will be made into a new exhibition that will aim to help us remember Toronto’s psyche during this moment.

Artwork by Anne Michaels | Photograph by Marzena Pogorzaly | Source

How are you recording this moment? What would you put in a pandemic time capsule to explain this to future generations?

CALLING IT ART: PHOTOGRAPHY AND MARCEL DUCHAMP

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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It is hard to bring up Marcel Duchamp in conversation without eliciting a series of groans from a crowd of MMSt friends. I recently made this mistake at a bar after attending the You Are Here gallery opening with some colleagues.

Dust Breeding at the RIC | Photograph courtesy of Erika Serodio

“You all need to see the exhibition on right now at the Ryerson Image Centre,” I told them. “It’s about dust and photography… And it’s all built around this one photograph of dust by Marcel Duchamp.”

I am met with a few polite nods.
“Oh yes, I’ll check it out.”
“Sounds abstract.”
And finally,
“it’s just that I really hate Marcel Duchamp.”

Bicycle Wheel by Marcel Duchamp | Source

My knowledge of art history is rudimentary; I was first introduced to Marcel Duchamp in Abbi Jacobson’s highly relatable podcast, A Piece of Work.  Jacobson brings up Duchamp at the start of her first episode, where she explains that his sculpture titled Bicycle Wheel, is one of the starting places for modern art. Bicycle Wheel is an example of art made with common, everyday objects which the artist has selected and designated as art – an artistic movement or style called “Readymades.” People get skeptical when they walk into New York’s MoMA, and come across a bicycle wheel amidst the abundance of masters that adorn the museum’s walls. How can this be art?

Throughout my first year in the Museum Studies program, I have wrestled with the question of what a museum can and should be. There is an inherent institutional rigidity to museums that deters some people from ever entering, regardless of what’s on view inside. I think of how exhibitions or art pieces in alternative spaces might reach people who do not feel like “art” is for them. Coming back to Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel at this point in the semester felt necessary. Jacobson explains in her podcast how Duchamp was trying to make a point about the way that art has been historically viewed as rare and elite. The inclusion of his readymade bicycle wheel in a gallery defied that idea, and instead claimed that anything could be art, and anyone could be an artist. For Duchamp, the ideas behind the art were more important than the physical realization of that art.

128 Photographs of a Painting by Gerhard Richter | Photograph courtesy of Erika Serodio

This idea is especially relevant when thinking about photography as art today. The impressive quality of the cameras embedded in our everyday cellphones has made it so that photographs are ubiquitous and everyone can be a photographer. How then, does an exhibition space that focuses on photography maintain its prestige? The answer might be that it doesn't. The photographs in the Ryerson Image Centre's current exhibition, A Handful of Dust, "highlight quotidian details of life." Everyday elements take on new meaning with the accumulation of and deterioration by tiny, unimportant specks of dust. This exhibition feels like something that anyone could be a part of and there is something undeniably beautiful about that idea. 

A Handful of Dust: From the Cosmic to the Domestic runs from January 22nd to April 5, 2020, and is free to attend.

NEW CIRCADIA: AN EXHIBITION FOR A CITY THAT DOESN'T SLEEP

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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The first time I went to New Circadia (Adventures in Mental Spelunking), it was a Tuesday. A friend and I fit our visit into a pocket of time during a busy week. I took advantage of being with someone who wasn’t studying museums like myself, and I suggested we bypass the exhibition text on the main floor and head straight to the installation downstairs. A few weeks later, I nervously asked one of the curators, Professor Richard Sommer, about the ideas and intentions behind the text that I had not taken the time to read. To my relief, Sommer explained that they did not want this exhibition to be pedagogical. The didactic part of the show was designed by the team of curators which included Richard Sommer, Natalie Fizer and Emily Stevenson of Pillow Culture, and Laura Miller. A recent Daniels graduate, Zainab Al-Rawi, helped with the research. According to Sommer, the text was intentionally separate from the installation because they didn’t want people to have to work for the experience.

How do you organize your time? Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio

New Circadia taps into our current cultural moment by cross-examining our never-ending push for productivity. The curatorial team set out to design a space for idling and mental decompression. Sleeping in the space, says Sommer, was not outside of the goal. “We’ve had faculty fall asleep in there.” But Sommer adds that there was a broader sense of ambitions. The space was designed for anyone to fall into a state of semi-unconscious, to be lulled into a dream state. However, the positive reaction from students who are using the space to rest on campus has not gone unnoticed. The team at Daniels made the choice to extend their hours during the most intense time of the year for students; they stayed open all night at the end of last semester.

One of the puzzles in designing a space for people to disconnect is addressing the inconspicuous and insidious ways in which our cell phones are tied to our waking life. The curatorial team carefully considered how to make this space tech-free without being draconian about it; they did not want to make a no-phone rule. They chose instead to take a laissez-faire approach, hoping that the space itself would inspire phone-free behaviour. In my experience this has worked quite well.

Dream Parliament. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio

A wide range of events are set to compliment the space in the coming months. Last Thursday, Matthew Spellberg and David Leo Rice led a comfortably horizontal audience through An Exercise in the Democracy of Sleep. Through his talk about the history of sharing dreams and the benefits of dissecting this common experience, Spellberg made a case for reclaiming sleep in a society that tends to devalue it. Recorded dreams had been printed in large fonts and affixed to the walls of the cave-like installation. Some of those dreams were collected through Oneiroi, a dream-sharing project that operates in tandem with New Circadia. An audience member asked Spellberg what we know about controlling our dreams. His response was that we do not, conclusively, know very much, but we do know that talking about our dreams will make it more likely that we remember them. Spellberg told us that after tonight’s talk it was very likely that we would all remember our dreams tomorrow morning. Sure enough, for the first time in what felt like weeks, I woke the next morning from a vivid dream to the sound of my landlady roaring the snow blower outside my window.

New Circadia (Adventures in Mental Spelunking) runs from November 7, 2019 to April 30, 2020, and is free to attend.

The upcoming programming associated with New Circadia is not to be missed:

February 13, 2020 – Performance: Christine Sun Kim
February 25, 2020 – Lecture: Mark Kingwell, “Wish I Were Here: Boredom and the Interface”
March 5, 2020 – Lecture: Franny Nudelman, "Activist Encampments and the Fight for Public Sleep"
March 13, 2020 – Performance: Beau Rhee
April 2, 2020 – Performance: Kay Turner, “Persephone’s Return/Persephone’s Revenge”

VISITOR AS INVESTIGATOR IN THE CITY OF BROKEN WINDOWS

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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A spine tingling array of sounds greet you as you enter The City of Broken Windows installation at the AGO. It’s hard to decipher whether the noise is coming from the sweet blowing noise of wind chimes or something fragile breaking into a million pieces. This general feeling of duality stayed with me while I tried to understand the different parts of this work.

The City of Broken Windows. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio.

Two competing storylines are written on the walls of the large room, one above the other in a single line each. This forces the visitor, if they are intent on reading both storylines, to make two 360 degree rotations of the room. I was so intent on reading that I nearly bumped into another visitor who was doing the same. An uneasy dance ensued as we all looked over our shoulders before turning slightly here and moving there to get closer to the words we needed next. The required focus on the words is heightened by the two short films playing on opposite sides of the room. The physical screens obscure the words on the wall, forcing you to move around them to read everything, but also forcing you to tune out their competing audio. And yet the room seemed to shift quietly.

"An uneasy dance ensued as we all looked over our shoulders before turning slightly here and moving there to get closer to the words we needed next."

A secret ritual to paint. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio

The City of Broken Windows is part of a current AGO exhibition of work by Hito Steyerl. Adelina Vlas, the AGO’s Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, says that “visitors can expect to be led on a series of often-hallucinatory, always illuminating, investigative journeys into the truth about technology and our everyday lives.”

An investigative journey flawlessly describes my experience with this installation. I walked into the room, and immediately chose where to start – with the words on the wall. But I noticed others around me walked first towards the film screens. Each short film is reflective of one of the storylines. I felt impelled to put the pieces together. There is an underlying story beneath; footnotes are at work throughout the installation both adding and distorting information. I took snapshots of the references to Frédéric Bastiat’s economic theory – something to look up later at home. This installation provided a topic I had never truly considered and when I left my mind was engulfed by that topic.

Footnoted. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio

The City of Broken Windows made me feel like I was an active part of it. I could see the layers beneath the ideas and read deeper into them as needed. Even though the subject was a little confusing and complex, I felt empowered to figure it all out. Placing the visitor as an investigator can provide unexpected moments of surprise and delight. In so many of our classes in the Museum Studies program we touch on the importance of making visitors active participants in meaning-making. In The City of Broken Windows, Hito Steyerl has positioned the visitor to do just that. 

This city is cutting edge. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio.

Hito Steyerl: This is the future runs from October 24, 2019 to February 23, 2020, free with the price of admission (completely free if you bring your OMA card).

A GIFT GUIDE FOR MUSEUM PEOPLE

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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As our first semester comes to a close, many of the first year Museum Studies students have remarked on the joy of being surrounded by so many like-minded people in our program. There are obvious characteristics that draw people to this field. If you’re reading this blog, you probably have Museum People in your life. And if you need a gift for that special someone, you should keep in mind that we like cultural experiences, we have an affinity for the tactile, and we are drawn to aesthetics. Read on for a few gift ideas for your new (or old) museum friends.

EXPERIENCES

Museum people love to take part in cultural activities. We enjoy watching eclectic films (note the use of the word films, not movies) and we like to do so in old elegant theatres like the newly opened Paradise on Bloor. A gift card for a night out at the theatre would be a real treat this winter. Or better yet – just buy tickets and drag your museum friend to the show you want to see!

Paradise Theatre on Bloor | Source 

An annual pass to a museum like the AGO would be a great gift for the museum people in your life. But the museum people in your life might already have a pass… in which case you should get tickets for one of the many talks and events put on by some of the great institutions in your city. Who wouldn’t want to spend an evening at the ROM learning about The Human History of the Mosquito?

TACTILE

Museum people prefer flipping pages to scrolling. Encourage this tactile habit with a subscription to an arts and culture magazine like Canadian Art or Frieze!

Photograph courtesy of Erika Serodio.

Should we keep our agendas on our phones and laptops like the rest of our technologically advanced society? Maybe. But museum people tend be old school and impractical. We write down our plans on paper. And the crowd favourite in museum studies classrooms seems to be the Moleskine.

After we manually check off every item on this week's to-do list, museum people return to flipping pages for pleasure. An artsy coffee table book would be much appreciated! I recently gifted one from this gift guide in a Museum Studies gift exchange. Each book on this list is recommended by an artist, collector, gallerist, or curator.

ART 

And last, but not least, museum people do not have blank walls. Add to their personal collection with something aesthetically pleasing.

The Champs by Stephanie Cheng | Source 

Stephanie Cheng is a Toronto-based designer with designs that are infused with local landmarks and people. You can buy from her online store or from one of several shops who stock her work.

Mass by Annie Axtell | Source

Annie Axtell is a printmaker and artist who works out of Vancouver. She makes some seriously sublime art. You can buy her prints online or pick up one of her infamous lunar calendars at this shop in Toronto.

One last thing to remember about museum people is that they value the intangible just as much as the tangible. The gift of your time is never wasted on them. You could take your museum people to free events like this gallery party at the Power Plant or go an adventure in mental spelunking at the new Architecture and Design Gallery. Whether you're shopping or not this season, be sure to spend some time with your museum people. 

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON REPRESENTING THE DEAD

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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Artist: Gabriel Parniak. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio.

In the middle of the night on this year’s Nuit Blanche, my friends and I stumbled upon a collection of coffins that made us think, made us tear up, and made us laugh out loud. One in particular left us all in a fit of giggles – it was decorated by the artist Gabriel Parniak, who wrapped it in home-construction paper with a clever glowing inscription: “looking for a new home that suits your lifestyle?” It was a strange feeling for me to be laughing at a coffin, a moment of cognitive dissonance.

Eulogy for the Coffin Factory. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio.

This installation was titled Eulogy for the Coffin Factory; it was composed of 24 coffins, each decorated by an artist who had been a previous tenant in the art studios and workshops of the building at 89-109 Niagara Street in Toronto. In early 2019, the artists in the building were evicted as it was slated for redevelopment. Through this art installation, the artists paid homage to the tenants before them – the National Casket Company – and they used “creative acts as a form of grieving.”

Artist: Erick García Gómez. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio.

Selected coffins from the original installation were shown again this past weekend at Harbourfront Centre for a Day of the Dead celebration – a tradition known for commemorating the lives of people and their achievements without focusing on sorrow and mourning. The experience of laughing and thinking about the life and death of the Coffin Factory was made more rich in this context. After the coffins, were Ofrendas – art installations that creatively commemorated those who have died seeking asylum, Latin American immigrants passed in the Sonora and Arizona deserts, and the bees – a population in alarming decline. Up one flight of stairs from here were more traditional ofrendas which took the form of alters that commemorated loved ones who had been lost. In both traditional and contemporary versions, the subject matter was heartbreaking but the bright colours and gorgeous designs had a celebratory tone. This didn’t feel so strange to me anymore.

Artist: Jade Leyva. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio.

The Day of the Dead tradition is listed by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The creative displays made to represent this intangible piece of heritage were thought provoking. Paying homage to those who came before us does not always need to be sad. It can be fun, it can be bright, and it can be beautiful.

Artist: Brian Medina. Photo courtesy of Erika Serodio. 

JUST ANOTHER WEEKEND ON THE INTERNET

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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A few Saturdays ago, on September 28th, Jia Tolentino – a staff writer at the New Yorker – spoke to a sold out Toronto crowd about her new book Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion.

Trick Mirror. Photo Courtesy of Erika Serodio.

A few Sundays ago, on September 29th, I rode my bicycle to Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art where the Age of You exhibition has taken over floors two and three of the factory-turned-museum building.

Age of You at MOCA. Photograph courtesy of Erika Serodio. 

These two shows felt like companions to each other. Both focused broadly on two words that have become increasingly difficult to define: the self and the internet. Why, you might ask, would I choose to fill my weekend with the bleak and bitter words describing my generation’s demise? The answer is twofold. First, to compare how a more traditional museum space and a space that’s definitely not a museum engage their audiences in an important conversation. And second, because I think it’s an important conversation.

I like to think I’m not a fan-girl kind of girl. But Jia Tolentino has not only made me her fan-girl, she has forced me to reconsider the ways that I think about myself. Her new book is a collection of essays about “the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self” (according to the book’s jacket.) Tolentino was interviewed about the book by Kathleen Newman-Bremang, senior writer for Refinery29. Over 700 people attended the sold out show at Hot Docs cinema. Obviously I’m not the only fan-girl.

Kathleen Newman-Bremang & Jia Tolentino. Photograph Courtesy of Erika Serodio.

Tolentino’s subject matter is dismal. She spoke about the performance of self, about how the internet has monetized identity and selfhood, and about how when we are burdened with an economic mandate our sense of self becomes unclear. And yet, with an uncanny lightness, both her book and her speaking event have made spaces where I feel comfortable and compelled to critique the way that I present myself on the internet compared to in-person.

Age of You at MOCA. Photograph courtesy of Erika Serodio. 

In Age of You, the MOCA exhibition curated by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artworks interrogate how “you –and all your online behaviours, enriched data sets and millions of meta-data points –are this century’s most valuable resource.” Age of You was a whole lot more apocalyptic than Trick Mirror. People walked through the exhibition quietly and uncomfortably. I was disturbed by the images and the words presented. This is actually a feeling I love in museums – please, make me feel something! I thought I would come away from this weekend with a better understanding of how algorithms and data sets are affecting me. Both shows made me realize that it’s impossible to understand the effects of the internet because it’s moving faster than we can comprehend. What might be the most important thing is to remain critical of our online behaviours.

Tolentino joked about how several interviewers have commented on the fact that her essays do not have conclusions. But then she said something that had the entire audience laughing in agreement. She asked us to think about some of the best conversations we have ever had and how they usually end without a conclusion. She acted out her version of this scenario by nodding with a bewildered look and said “Yeah, man.” To Jia Tolentino, “a neat ending absolves us of productive discomfort.”

Age of You at MOCA. Photograph courtesy of Erika Serodio.

The last piece in the Age of You’s exhibition is titled The Impossibility of David Bowie Being Dead in the Minds of the Living. It’s an effigy of Bowie’s face that represents his immortal persona. Yeah, man.