Visit Interpreting Collections by Julia Xu ’19

About This Project

What makes an object interesting? For me, it is its stories. With an intriguing story, a seemingly mundane object can have the power to become meaningful. For instance, a museum is a placeholder for different art objects, and one of the jobs for museums is to present the significance of their collection, however, new ways of storytelling are needed. This project is the capstone project to the Museums Concentration at Smith College. If you are interested to learn more about my Museum concentration experience, visit my portfolio here.

With this project, I hope to go beyond what’s behind museum labels for people to explore the dynamic stories that connect the art, people, and places. The Smith College Museum of Art is selected as a model for this project. Through reading about travel history, donor history, exhibition history, controversies about the art objects that found their home at the SCMA, the viewer is invited to learn more about the museum object as well as to understand more about how museums display and interpret art objects.

The selected 9 objects are of personal interest to me due to their global narratives. Enjoy!