Chipstone Exhibition
FALL 2016 / (un)making the museum / Mo Zell
Team Members: Kelsey Dettmann, Sarah Grieve, Garett Tomesh
For this project, the studio broke into teams to work in partnership with the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee, WI to create an innovate exhibition to display artifacts from their collection. The site for this project was a retired kitchen, approximately 80 square feet, in the carriage house on the Chipstone’s property.
The artifacts selected for the exhibit were World War I porcelain souvenirs. The war souvenirs were seen as “trophies” from the battlefield and mementos of the greatest conflict in history. Furthermore, they represent people’s pride in architectural and engineering achievements and also, the sadness of personal and national loss. Through the abstraction of a trench, we explored how the artifacts talk to each other and also to the visitors via their placement within the exhibition and the position of the body relative to the artifacts.
The inspiration for the project came from researching World War I warfare, specifically trench warfare, and the movements made by soldiers in the trenches (i.e. crawling, sitting, ducking, standing). The exhibition abstracted the trench conditions and the moves required to navigate them into a series of tessellated surfaces. To view the artifacts, visitors were thus forced to move in similar ways as the soldiers who fought in the trenches during WWI.
As part of a Design/Build studio, we played an active role in the project from its conception to the construction and installation phases. The project was constructed, in sections, in our woodshop, then transported to and installed at the Chipstone site.
The exhibition was lit only from within the “cases” where the artifacts were placed. Artifacts are “hidden” from view unless visitors move and engage with the exhibition. Some artifacts can be viewed from multiple directions, forcing viewers to continuously move through and rediscover the exhibit. Given the dimly lit, “precariousness” nature of the exhibition, it also serves as a commentary on the threat and uncertainty of trench life.
