Confront the Canon

Overview

A 2019 diversity study of eighteen U.S. museums found that 85% artists in the collections are white and 87% are men (Topaz 2019). A similar trend was observed in the racial make-up of the curatorial staff and the resultant displays tend to propagate a largely Western perspective. Exhibitions play a crucial role in promoting and perpetuating the myth of greatness concretized in the art historical canon. Critical examination of the collection can uncover problematic institutional practices and allow the display to be viewed in a new light that reveal relevant hidden context. Confront the Canon (CTC) is visualized as a tool designed to reflect on the institutional bias integral in museum collection/ exhibition practices with the aim of highlighting marginalized or missing voices. The central question being explored is: How does an institution’s collection and curatorial practices contribute to the marginalization of artists based on race/gender/nationality?

Why CTC?

The inspiration for CTC is Fred Wilson’s brilliant project, Mining the Museum that delivered a powerful statement against institutional racism. While Wilson culled forgotten African-American artifacts from the Maryland Historical Society’s permanent collection to create compelling interventions in their conventional display, CTC will empower the users to challenge the represented histories. The project will provide contextual information on the exhibited objects that highlight potential exclusionary aspects and allow the informed user to introduce an alternate intervention object that could initiate important conversations around biased institutional practices.

Apart from art institutions, CTC can be adapted to examine collections hosted in museums of natural history, libraries and other custodians of history. The platform audience could include art historians, researchers, students from art history/ digital humanities/ gender studies, curatorial staff, museum educators and others interested in exploring exclusions in preserved histories. Institutions can use CTC to evaluate their collections, invite collaborators to diversify their displays and make their audience interactions more inclusive. Since several institutions have a digital presence when it comes to the exhibition space, there is an opportunity to adapt CTC with the express aim of engaging their audience to examine their collections. CTC is also intended to work as a pedagogical tool that will allow students to participate in their learning process and use the platform as an alternative to standard evaluations.

Vision for the Final Product

The project will encourage users to examine how curatorial practices enact the canon and reinforce the set narrative. To this end, CTC will showcase a past exhibition featuring additional contextual information in the object labels, produce relevant visualizations and allow the user to insert strategic replacements in the display. The project website will host the following panels using the WordPress platform:

• Past Exhibition Panel: Display selected past exhibition.
  • Research past exhibitions on museum websites to finalize a display.
  • Create basic dataset design.
  • Create the display utilizing Google Slides* to provide an immersive experience. The accompanying object labels will provide insightful contextual information.
• Intervention Panel: CTC seeks alternative perspectives and insights into the collection in the form of these interventions.
  • Users will have the option to intervene in the display in a meaningful way by choosing to replace an exhibit in the original display with an appropriate intervention object.
  • For replacement objects, the option is to partner with a smaller collection and use Omeka* to provide a searchable object list to choose a replacement intervention object.
  • Create the new display after integrating the intervention object into the exhibition display.
• Data Visualization Panel: Provide additional context about the exhibit.
  • A separate page will feature Tableau generated data visualizations displaying statistics involving the race, gender, nationality of the featured creators.
  • Visualization data will analyze the objects in the display. Depending on the availability of usable data, additional visualizations analyzing the entire collection will be included.

* Contingent on the theory that Google Slides and Omeka can be embedded into WordPress.

One of the challenges is to locate a manageable dataset because collection datasets are typically huge and will require considerable investment of time in data cleaning and data management. At the prototype stage, the solution is to either work with a smaller collection so both the intervention selection and the visualizations can benefit from having access to the entire collection OR feature just the exhibition data on the project site and direct the user to the original museum site to explore intervention objects while the visualizations will be limited to the available data. There are also access restrictions to consider and the issue of permission rights will have to be addressed by taking appropriate steps to seek permission or locate alternatives in the public domain.

CTC will be disseminated with the help of the project team and consultants. The team will approach academic institutions (departments of fine art/ art history/ history), libraries, museum curatorial and education departments. CUNY GC Digital Initiatives team and GC Digital Fellows Team will be consulted to reach the CUNY community along with platforms such as CUNY ACADEMIC COMMONS to spread awareness of the project and invite collaborations to enhance CTC’s capabilities as well as advance the project into its next phase of expansion to work with different collection types.

STAFF/PARTNERS

• Project Lead/Researcher: Review collections to select one for the project, initiate intervention object options and collaborate with programmers and consultants on visual design and usability.
• Programmer, Data Analyst: 1-2 team members with programming expertise on Python to scrap data, build datasets and website. Expertise in Omeka.
• Consultants:
  • CUNY GC Digital Initiatives team and GC Digital Fellows: Consult for project approach and optimum digital tool options.
  • CUNY GC Art History Department: Consult Art History graduates for perspectives on project approach and suggestions on making meaningful interventions.
  • Museum Curator: Perspective on the collection and curatorial practices, appropriate collections and intervention objects to consider.

The project will be a team effort, truly collaborative and we will make all critical decisions collectively as a group.

Slide Deck

PPT version

From children to adults with nostalgic eyes, surely all of us can appreciate the joy of carousels. New York City is lucky to be home to several vintage and new carousels that bring joy to families and just about anyone that happens upon them!

Why create a NYC carousel map?

• Although maps can be found on traditional mapping apps (ie: Google Maps), there is a lot of clutter to get around- it would be nice to have a visual that clearly shows their locations to help with planning visits
• One needs to dig for logistical information on visiting the carousels such as pricing, policies, accessibility, nearby bathrooms, and nearby attractions. This map will include a subset of criteria that directly addresses these concerns to help visitors better plan their visit.
• The visual of a “carousel only” map will highlight where there are a lack of carousels in the five boroughs. Adding a layered map indicating socio-economic data or real estate prices in these areas may shed light on why these disparities exist, and help as an advocacy tool for creating carousels in these areas, as well as recommendations to investigate if there is also a lack of other recreational facilities in the same places.

How will it be done?

Carousel locations are easy to locate and retrieve GPS/address information. We will need to visit/call/research what the carousel’s policies and logistics are. Ideally, team members would sign up to visit specific carousels to a) provide a short review of their experience that may further help interested visitors and b) to take original photographs if no open-license/creative commons photos are available.

We will need to use source(s) like NYC Open Data to determine which data point(s) we want to use to create the layered map.

This information will need to gathered in a systematic way to include in an interactive map. As someone that is new to mapping, I am open to different platforms based on the groups current expertise and interests.

The map will need to be hosted on a website. For now, I propose using CUNY Academic Commons, but am also open to discussion here. Beyond hosting the interactive map, this site should also have a “Recommendations” page based on our analysis of areas in need of carousels. Other fun features may include our personal reviews of carousels, and a call for site visitors to add their own comments/experiences.

Outreach is twofold- one is to family centered and/or tourist centered social media and blogs. Mommy Poppins, Brooklyn Bridge Parents, and Park Slope Parents are some family accounts that come to mind. Time Out NYC, NYC Tourism, Visit NYC are a few examples of possible tourist outreach. Secondly, reaching out to government agencies such as the NYC Parks/Recreation Department, the Department of City Planning, and possibly development companies to advocate for placement of future carousels in areas “in need” of one.

Social media buzz can involve little teasers of carousels, personal experiences on them, memories of carousels, quick tips, etc. Perhaps also providing carousels themselves with QR code flyers of the map once completed.

Why this project?

This project is a fun and practical way to put into practice some DH elements that we have learned about so far. The amount of data to go through is very reasonable, there are less that 20 carousels, and we will be very selective in the NYC data we use to layer. I think the vision of the project is clear, and believe the scope of the project is well within reason to come at least close to a finished product. I also think the skillsets required are approachable and align with many of our own.

I also think that carousels have a universal appeal, both to ourselves and to the wider public. I think it could have some impact on the “real world” and is easily presentable and intuitive to outside parties. Could it have 15 minutes of fame?

As the project “pitcher” I also want to make clear that I feel no particular ownership of this project, and am open to all suggestions/ideas/feedback. I am excited to see how the project will evolve when great minds come together!