Following on from themes explored in the project 'Choices, choices' at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, this year-long residency explored ideas of expertise and how subjective preferences might sometimes be presented as objective knowledge. Many historic collections represent idiosyncratic choices made by previous curators. By revealing the personal in the desire to collect, the project invited visitors and staff to imagine which object they would like to be shown or returned to their local museum collection. This was particularly timely as Doncaster Museum was rewriting their Acquisitions Policy at the time.
Found in the Doncaster Museum Stores
At Cannon Hall Barnsley, the focus was more on the idea of value. Provoked by a tapestry depicting the Judgement of Paris, visitors were invited to think of objects in terms of beauty, knowledge and power.
'It is the onlooker who makes the museum' - Duchamp