On Collecting and Curating

I recently read an article that touted the importance of curation and curating in an increasingly overwhelming world, noting that the ability to select and discriminate is a valuable skill for the 21st century world. We have read quite a bit recently about the information overload the internet has brought us, and the generations of citizens who now grow up more accustomed to visuals and the proliferation of people with media and tech savvy. But what does this all mean? There are broader social implications of this shift.
Authority
This is not an original point - that the proliferation of knowledge and information has led to many nontraditional experts, the inclusion of voices previously silenced or obliterated, and the emergence of "internet" celebrities - selfmade, in true American fashion. One can make oneself an authority on a subject, now - there is no authorizing, validating figure or institution necessary, anymore. There are the obvious drawbacks to this - look at Wikipedia, for example - the "you never know who could be writing this" phenomenon, and with this comes the necessity of extensive cross-referencing. You can't believe everything you read. Especially on the internet. This is the price we have to pay, it seems, to leave the floodgates open for the occasional, unknown gem to be discovered, the missing, unheard voice to echo in a space of reception.
So, these new curators appear to be more democratic than their predecessors. They will be chosen, become popular based on their merit and ability to appeal to their audiences, rather than standing on an empty throne, chosen by experts who want a descendant to promulgate their worldviews into the coming generations. Individuals can choose who to listen to - and that person's choices, recommendations, worldviews become then paramount in determining or reinforcing one's own. Are we about to witness an age of despots, tyrants? The few individuals who are cunning enough to filter (and filter well) the torrents of information charging at the public, and wield them, will stand powerful on the wilyness of their own choices (in the past, they have been powerful by having been merely placed in positions of power). Or will these new voices allow us to juxtapose and make meaning in new places? My mother explained to me once that Einstein's brain was very heavy, because the synapses in his brain connected physically, which formed ponderous bonds. The more connections our brain has, allowing us to link seemingly unconnected thoughts, the heavier our brains (but not necessarily heavy thoughts!). I find connections like Faulkner and Common delightful, because it is a way of relating to deep meaning behind art and surfacing it in its various iterations at the hands and words of different meaningmakers.

The Psychology of Collecting
My master's seminars on museums taught me about the way museums came into being. They are descendents, however now far removed, from curio or curiosity cabinets. Cabinets full of things that were curious, odd, beautiful. Europe's wealthy assembled them from their travels, as a way of demonstrating their power - to visit places others couldn't, and take for themselves pieces of that place (sometimes paying for it, sometimes not), putting these objects into boxes showcasing their uniqueness, freakishness, representativeness of another culture or place. Collecting is an act of possession, an act of making meaning or selecting a predominant meaning for an object, despite or because of the other adherent meanings. Objects can be selected for their sentimental value - just look at any child, who gathers and keeps stuffed animals, toys, sports league trophies. These things are brought together because of what they represent - they are tangible memories. Collecting is thus subjective, personal, possessive.

If collecting is subjective and personal, and if modern individuals become self-made authorities based on their collecting of objects, ideas - their curating ability - are we not witnessing a popularity contest? And, is a popularity contest not the actual essence of democracy? If so, collecting and curating might transition from one of the most authority-sodden practices to one of the most democratic...

Book Review: Cultural Democracy by James Bau Graves

I picked this book up off the shelf at my work's library, intrigued by the title and its promise to discuss arts, community and culture in America. Bau Graves lives and works in Maine and has a long career in running arts and cultural programs there. With his experience attempting to integrate and bring into dialogue diverse immigrant and foreign cultures with "mainstream" American culture, Bau Graves brings a voice of experience to the narrative even if that voice is not an academic voice. He falls prey to a few dangerous binaries that trouble his attempt to call for increased cooperation and a more representative cultural scene, which is a laudable goal and critical if the arts are to serve a larger social purpose.

As Bau Graves discovered and relates in Chapter 1, the dynamics of communities are complicated. It was not clear to me whether Bau Graves understood the danger of applying terms like "insider," "outsider," and "authentic." There isn't one Asian community that is monolithic here in Brooklyn's Chinatown, but many communities. While Bau Graves pays surface homage to this, it isn't clear that this understanding has deeply penetrated his thinking. He seems to think that there is a way to infiltrate the secrets of authentic (or authentic-enough?) culture, which is perhaps reflective of his work which is practically oriented (and my issue reflective of my academic training).

Sentences like "the attending outsiders miss out on the ambiance of ethnicity, the feeling of being presence of the Other" or "we're still a lot better at putting ethnics on stage than at getting them in our seats" (both p.71) are offensive in their presumption that "the Other" or "the ethnics" aren't involved in the cultural scene except as potential spectators, and in the automatic homogenizing of a white, upper middle class audience in a position of power and creation in the arts. Careless word choice here reaffirms divisions and simplistic and insulting binaries, inherited from colonialist thought, rather than undermining them. The arts are a place for Americans to break down barriers and encourage diversity that reflects our society. My academic training rigorously stressed the thoughtlessness and idiocy of Orientalizing those different from myself (which, if you think about it, includes everyone else), and I think it is necessary to deconstruct this line of thinking about ambiance, authenticity, and ethnicity and the American arts scene. It's completely unacceptable because of its sheer hypocrisy: putting "Others" on display for their novelty or considering "them" exterior to "us" reinforces preexisting notions of difference and harkens back to the late 1800s concepts of Worlds Fairs, where people of different ethnicities were put in cages for "we the civilized" to observe. I would hope that by 2010 we could think outside the cage.

Bau Graves does address deconstructing accepted norms of time and structure in America's attempt to democratize the arts,an important call to collaboration and acceptance of other world-views. Constructions of authority, time, and power structure shift across our blue planet and it is key for arts leaders to recognize and be sensitive to working with others (not "Others"!). After my experience working abroad, I can definitely attest that this is a key and necessary learning if one is to be truly collaborative. It is also noteworthy that Bau Graves articulates how precarious the cultural mediator position is, and interrogates the power of the arts administrator.

Bau Graves cites Martin Luther King, who said, "I doubt if the teeming problems of our ghettos will have a great chance to be solved until the white majority, in genuine empathy, comes to feel the ache and anguish of the Negro's daily life" (197). It is this spirit of openness and empathy which I believe Bau Graves wants to encourage, and which I applaud and join my voice to the call for an American arts and cultural scene (as well as political, while we're at it) that truly reflects who we have become as one nation of many gorgeous and unique pieces. Part of that openness and empathy comes in dropping Orientalist ideas, removing our blinders, and questioning all our assumptions to come to a place of more considered sharing and learning.