Imaginary Museum 2014
In April 2014, The MFA in Graphic Design and the MFA in Curatorial Practice programs presented an exhibition created by MICA Graphic Design MFA candidates, Curatorial Practice MFA students, and students from the course Interdisciplinary Approaches to Curatorial Practice. Students worked in teams to propose imaginary museums. They developed museums as centers for scholarship, activist museums, anti-museums, and museums more on the web or in the street than in a fixed position. The students’ museums posed questions like: How do you curate data? What if museums exhibited mostly notes—the beginnings of ideas—rather than resolved ideas or finished products? What if a museum felt like a search engine or felt and looked like a cruise ship?
In creating their imaginary museums, curators considered the politics and aesthetics of display and the social role of museums, especially as museums start to consider virtual space, online exhibitions, and online audiences. Designers generated innovative experimental branding that expresses and expands upon the curators’ core proposals. Participants in Imaginary Museum included students from the following programs: Critical Studies MA, Curatorial Practice MFA, Graphic Design BFA, Graphic Design MFA, Hoffberger School of Painting MFA, Interdisciplinary Sculpture BFA, Mount Royal School of Art MFA, Photography BFA, Social Design MA, and Continuing Education. This exhibition and book project received support from the Office of Graduate Studies at MICA.
The participants were: Ellen Lupton (Director, MFA in Graphic Design) Marcus Civin (Faculty, MFA in Curatorial Practice), Miriam Arenberg, Gloria Azucena, Yeim Bae, Chris Beer, Marnie Benney, Michael Bonfiglio, Amanda Buck, Cheng Cao, Yu Chen, Larissa Cortes, Melani Douglass, Zack Franklin, Jennifer Gray, Nate Gulledge, Kimi Hanauer, Justin Hoekstra, Alexander Jacque, Kelly Johnson, Katrina Keane, Daniel Khang, Chienwen Kuo, Wenjie Lu, Yushi Luo, Sally Maier, Shiva Nallaperumal, Kirsten Poulsen-House, Samantha Redles, Emily Russell, Maggie Schneider, Tristan Scow, Iris Sprague, Aysia Stieb, Pari Valad, Alexandra Weil, and Haoqian Zhang.
You can order the Imaginary Museum 2014 book here.
In creating their imaginary museums, curators considered the politics and aesthetics of display and the social role of museums, especially as museums start to consider virtual space, online exhibitions, and online audiences. Designers generated innovative experimental branding that expresses and expands upon the curators’ core proposals. Participants in Imaginary Museum included students from the following programs: Critical Studies MA, Curatorial Practice MFA, Graphic Design BFA, Graphic Design MFA, Hoffberger School of Painting MFA, Interdisciplinary Sculpture BFA, Mount Royal School of Art MFA, Photography BFA, Social Design MA, and Continuing Education. This exhibition and book project received support from the Office of Graduate Studies at MICA.
The participants were: Ellen Lupton (Director, MFA in Graphic Design) Marcus Civin (Faculty, MFA in Curatorial Practice), Miriam Arenberg, Gloria Azucena, Yeim Bae, Chris Beer, Marnie Benney, Michael Bonfiglio, Amanda Buck, Cheng Cao, Yu Chen, Larissa Cortes, Melani Douglass, Zack Franklin, Jennifer Gray, Nate Gulledge, Kimi Hanauer, Justin Hoekstra, Alexander Jacque, Kelly Johnson, Katrina Keane, Daniel Khang, Chienwen Kuo, Wenjie Lu, Yushi Luo, Sally Maier, Shiva Nallaperumal, Kirsten Poulsen-House, Samantha Redles, Emily Russell, Maggie Schneider, Tristan Scow, Iris Sprague, Aysia Stieb, Pari Valad, Alexandra Weil, and Haoqian Zhang.
You can order the Imaginary Museum 2014 book here.