To experience an object in the space of the gallery alone can leave the original context obscured. Galleries rarely reveal the total context for the objects in their collections; the medium of exhibitions rarely communicates the conditions of acquisition. To obtain this information, one turns to the documents accompanying each acquisition, including correspondence, photographs, and appraisals, some of which are of a confidential nature. And though not all answers can be found, the documents that have accompanied the object since its entry into a gallery’s collection compose an independent history that acquires further layers each time the file is consulted or the object displayed.

Rather than attempt to communicate each object’s original context and that of its acquisition, this installation projects a possible visual experience of the ethnographic collection and its files. The use of multimedia permits simultaneous examination of both the cultural and institutional identity of each object. The images that accompany this display—all of which have been scanned directly from object files—acquaint the viewer with the larger acquisition history of the objects as well as the singular narrative that may have accompanied some of them upon entry into the University’s collection.

Patrick Leonard