The ReMuseum
The ReMuseum is a participatory, mobile experiment that investigates museum processes such as collecting, displaying, valuing and commodifying objects. Through a series of collaborative events, members of the ReMuseum re-frame dominant notions of the Museum and create a platform for the amplification of new, distinctive ideas of value.
The ReMuseum collection is comprised of a personalized series of objects chosen by individuals who exist outside the dominant museum structure. In early 2012, ReMuseums mobile curator, Raquel de Anda, engaged in discussions with a variety of DC community members about objects of personal significance, using the questions “What do you think belongs in a Museum?” and “What makes this object valuable?” as points of departure. Once selected, each object was replicated and the stories edited into video and sound installations that depict unique and varied expressions of DC’s cultural landscape. This collection will be displayed at both Museums and outlying DC neighborhoods transforming treasured everyday objects into monuments of value while presenting intimate, touching and amusing depictions of our shared history.
PROCESS
In early 2012, ReMuseums mobile curator, Raquel de Anda, engaged in discussions with a variety of DC community members about objects of personal significance, using the questions “What do you think belongs in a Museum?” and “What makes this object valuable?” as points of departure. Once selected, each object was replicated and the stories edited into video and sound installations that depict unique and varied expressions of DC’s cultural landscape. This collection will be displayed at both Museums and outlying DC neighborhoods transforming treasured everyday objects into monuments of value while presenting intimate, touching and amusing depictions of our shared history.
Art in Mobility (the Floating Museum)
In a society of constant displacement, how do art institutions adapt? How does urban mobility transform public space? How can art institutions design actions to incorporate a society in movement? How can they create a place within this space, and a role in the periphery? How are sub-societies connected in the urban periphery?
The Floating Museum was born out of the “Floating Lab Collective,” a group of artists in the Washington DC metropolitan area, who find the scope for their reflection and creation within public spaces. The Floating Museum was conceived as a mobile space derived from our experiences in the context of the city.
The Collective sees “mobility” as existing in the context of the Washington DC metropolitan area within certain socio-economic parameters. First, mobility is a key component of the immigrant condition. The very presence of immigrants provokes a series of social and spatial movements, and their movements transform the urban landscape. Some examples of immigrant adaptation include taco trucks and pupuseria trucks that move between construction sites, foot paths created by immigrant commuters where sidewalks are not provided, and community centers that form a nucleus of social services and programs. In addition to exploring the effects of immigrant mobility in the city, we examine “commuter culture.” Commuting from the suburbs can be seen as a reactive perception of urban spaces as aggressive and troubled. Commuter movements such as traffic patterns have transformed the structure of time and space in the city.
Urban Structure
As the city is decentralized into sub-centers, the ideas of city, center, and periphery are absorbed into the idea of “metropolization.” Particularly visible is the adaptation of public space in zones mainly populated by Latino immigrants. These communities fragment their relationship with the center, only maintaining connection economically through their jobs.
Public Spaces
Public spaces in DC are static and resistant to adaptation. Nevertheless, immigrant communities in the periphery have concentrated according to region of origin, and effected changes in their new environments. Immigration has become a catalyst for the recreation of public space in the Washington DC area. The diaspora environment exists as a comfortable and familiar space for participation, empowerment, adaptation, and/or transformation.
Floating Museum/Mobile Media
The Museum is a response to urban mobility and the concept of the “commuter,” specific to the metropolitan area of Washington DC. The Floating Museum symbolically transforms a truck, normally used for selling tacos, into a moving museum. It functions under the premises of accessibility, participation, pertinence, roaming, and integration of displaced communities. The Floating Museum disperses ideas, constantly adapting itself to the urban environment. It moves concepts from abstraction into tangible form, becoming a platform for the interchange of experiences.
THE COLLECTION
MOBILE MEMORIALS
The ReMuseum is a project of Floating Lab Collective that re-imagines the meaning of collecting and displaying art objects. In early 2012, ReMuseum’s “mobile curator” engaged a variety of DC community members in selecting objects of personal significance to be included in The ReMuseum’s collection. The original objects were replicated for display both inside and outside the existing museum structure to reveal shared community values.
We invite you to become ReDistributors of this collection to question and propose various new concepts of value, and to create a multi-dimensional narrative of our city. Whereas the collection of the objects began with “What do you think belongs in a museum,” the distribution is motivated by the question “Where do you think these objects belong?”
Help us distribute replicas of objects of the ReMuseum collection throughout the city- anywhere from parking lots to windowsills, refrigerators, forgotten corners and playgrounds. Once they have been placed, we ask that you photograph it, identify the location and email it to the ReMuseum with a brief story about why you chose this location. Your documentation will become part off ReMuseum’s online exhibition .
By reflecting on the process of collecting and distributing we are honoring everyday objects, place, and history. We invite you to think expansively about our city. What does it mean to belong and contribute to the future of DC?
PARTICIPANTS
