The movable museum of found objects

I’m spreading my wings a bit these days, trying to get involved in different pieces of work, in different fields. Not that I’ve given up on government, just that there’s other things I’d like to explore and have a go at as well. After all, there ought to be some advantage in being self (under) employed.

So I’m really pleased to be teaming up with my friend, the social artist Katie Smith on her project We Found Art.

Here’s Katie’s own write-up describing what this is all about:

We Found Art is an online project which tours as an offline exhibition, ’The Moveable Museum of Found Objects.’ It explores notions of value and beauty in objects that have been lost, forgotten or discarded.

Between March and August 2011 online participants were invited to post small found objects to the We Found Art HQ, along with a note of where they were found and why they were chosen. The objects were catalogued and accessioned as they would were they to be joining a gallery or museum collection.

Participants were also invited to add their thoughts, stories, photographs, sound clips and films relating to the act of collecting to this blog.

All objects submitted were professionally photographed and joined an evolving online gallery and have been included with uploaded material in the touring exhibition.

The touring exhibition is in a caravan, which Katie has decked out as a museum including all the artefacts that have been send to her. We’re taking the caravan to various locations in our corner of Lincolnshire over the next few weeks thanks to some funding from the Transported project, which aims to engage people in creative activity.

I like the project a lot, partly because it’s a bit bonkers, partly because it involves a caravan and partly because of the creative use of the web, in particular Flickr.

I also love it because of the craft that has gone into putting this museum of objects people have just found together, in a caravan. There’s a real integrity to the whole thing, as the catalogue of collections and artefacts show, or the beautiful way the objects have been photographed.

It’s also a project about stories, and communities, and people and the environment around them. I’m really looking forward to helping Katie show people around her museum, to find out what others make of it, and how it might inspire them to find art in their everyday lives. It could be lying on the path, on their way home.

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