What histories might emerge from our careful, critical, and creative study of everyday modern design?
The authors in The Museum of Where We Are offer some promising responses.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, students in my ARTH300: History of Modern Design classes have chosen an example of modern design from their current place of residence as their central study object for our quarter. During our meetings, we considered how artifacts—from neoclassical decorative arts to punk rock apparel—were “provocations to thought,” to use a helpful phrase by the sociologist Sherry Turkle. As our time studying together slowly came to an end, students conceptualized, researched, and produced a short label for their object telling one such story.
A bobblehead of Michelangelo’s David inspires a reflection on what constitutes design. A mug’s tea stains recall countless evening conversations between a daughter and mother after long days of study and work. A dishwasher encourages a meditation on gender norms propagated in the mid-twentieth century and today. A watch offers comfort to its wearer as they travel the world.
One of our authors hopes her label might “help anyone who is curious to think critically”—about the stuff with which we surround ourselves and their many stories and affordances (physical, personal, and so on). Such is the aspiration of The Museum of Where We Are as a whole. As another author writes, “the beauty is in the looking.”
What objects are in the museum of where you are?
How have they come to mean for you?
Dr. Joseph H. Larnerd
Assistant Professor of Design History
Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.