martes, 12 de agosto de 2008

curating anthropology?

a while ago i was thinking about the idea of curating a lot. having some regrets at not having studied art history and realizing that that was really something i could get excited about. then i got frustrated with museums, galleries and the inaccessability of those spaces and veered away from thinking about art in museumey terms. but without realizing it, my interest has revolved back to curating, only in a different context. in thinking about writing my senior project, I am figuring out how to put together the actions, activities, projects, artwork, and words of different people and groups in a way that allows them to stand on their own in relation to the other components while still including some degree of my own analysis and perspective.

where do I find the balance between putting my voice and analysis over the words and actions of others to a point of speaking for them (which I really want to avoid)and also not getting so paralyzed that it turns into documentary-style documentation of other people's lives? presenting the work and ideas of other people and finding the common threads and key themes and differences that make up the interactions. but also pushing that further and trying to pull in the realities and experiences of readers and audience members.

so in that sense, I guess the space I am finding for myself right now within anthropology is a somewhat curatorial one, or at least that's what it's becoming even without the conscious decision to make it so. maybe i'm babbling....

recycling, tying together, antropofagia?