Curating objects

In this curatorial session we looked at curating objects, focusing on the object of an egg as the main feature, however other objects were provided for us to include in our instalation.

The egg as an object can be seen as something very significant as it has connotations of life, reproduction,birth, growth and if the egg is broken, it has the opposite connotations i.e: death. Also as we eat eggs, it also has conotations of consumtion and farming. These conotations have to be taken into consideration when curating it as an art object.

I worked in a group with Sarah and we chose to use the props, a doll and a plinth. We chose the plinth because by lifting our object up it brings it closer to the veiw so it is easyer for the veiwer to interact with. An egg in the corner of the room on the floor is veiwed very differently to one more central and raised on a plinth. An egg in the corner of a room would be questioned as to weither it was art at all because it is a form of food. We chose to use the small child sized doll as we wanted to bring forward the contotations of life, birth and growth that the egg presents. We felt that by having this prop it would highlight what we wanted to focus on instead of being very vague. We experimented with possitioning the doll and egg together in different ways, from the doll laying the egg (which we decided had more links with farming than we would like) to putting he doll in a superman pose, holding the egg (we rejected this because it focused on protection of the egg and the vunerability of life, instead of growth and birth). We finaly settled on the doll sitting on the plint, as though it was a seat, cupping its hands with the egg in them. We chose this because there is still the protection aspect of the doll holding the egg but it was more the doll presenting the egg than trying to hide it for safekeeping, which we felt showed life and growth more. It had quite a zen feel which linked in a way to rebirth which we felt was a good thing to show. This zen feeling was continued in the way we position the doll on a plinth which is quite statueesque. The figure of a statue gave the egg importance as statues tend to be made of important people/objects which was vital as part of our peice as we wanted to highlight the importance of life.