On Friday the 30th of November the Centre for Curating the Archive launched their website Object Ecologies, in collaboration with Iziko Museums of South Africa.
Objects are rarely considered to have a life of their own – a life that extends beyond the owner’s narrative and the story of its acquisition. When removed from its given context, fascinating histories and interpretations are able to emerge. Object Ecologies is a project that takes objects off the shelf and out of the storeroom, and allows them to tell of their lives and creations across cultural boundaries, space and time.
Students and staff at the Centre for Curating the Archive chose an object to research from its very origin to where it can now be found. The creation of an object was traced from its essential constitutive materials and geographical origin, to each place it has travelled, and for what reasons and functions it had done so. Each objects’ travels are comprehensively laid out on Google Maps, accompanied by high definition three-dimensional images thereof and an essay narrating the object's journey.
The website is an ongoing project that encourages submissions of new objects, and further investigation of the ones presented. Object Ecologies hopes to move beyond the prescribed history and meaning of the things around us, and open up conversations on how we could see them differently. The website runs alongside the CCA's exhibition, by the same name, at the Iziko South African Museum.
To access the website click here.
To read more on the exhibition click here.
Iziko page on the exhibition available here.