Objects are People Too…People are Not Objects
Over the course of two weeks and acting as a stranger coming into approximately 20 or more museums and cultural collecting institutions it has occurred to me that objects are people. In every site I visited I was being driven by the objects around me and trying to seek out the value they offered. Each piece told a story or narrative about the person who made it, who owned it, who used it, who destroyed it, who bought it… Each piece wasn’t valued for what it was or what it was made of, rather it what the life of the person who had contact with it and how this object made that person’s life carry on. Standing in a museum is like standing in a room with a million different great minds, celebrities, heroes, dictators, artists…and absorbing a piece of their wisdom or knowledge just by being near them.
The effect of these embodied spirits within collections is what visitors walk away with. Museum experience is more than just education on a topic or event, its an intrinsic calling that alters us in a small way. The stories of those before us or even those whose actions were captured in a moment in time through these objects can effect the way we perceive life, challenges, and change. It makes one think, what moments, what changes, what effect will I leave behind in the objects that I carry. What can I do to be significant to someone else through this. Doctors use tools everyday to heal people, IT developers use computers to build new ideas, painters use brushes to create new perspectives, radicals use written words to inspire a difference… All of these things define us and our time and culture, some are captured and used to mark our struggles, our victories, and how that can influence the world and the future. The objects are more than objects, they are people.
