Museum Studies Exhibition

    This page contains videos and images of an exhibition I put on at school from December 11th through December 14th, 2018.  This exhibition, entitled Frivolity, Revolution, & Rebirth: The Politics of Fashion in France from the Rococo Era to the Neoclassical Era, was the final project that an independent study course I took culminated in.  At Lake Ridge Academy, if a student has a particular interest in a subject which is not taught in a class, they may approach a qualified teacher in order to collaborate and design a specially-made course that a student with the necessary skills to work independently may take.  In the fall semester of 2018, my art history teacher, Vanessa Butchko, who studied museum studies and library science in college designed a course called Introduction to Museum Studies for me.  I wanted to study this because I wanted to have a better understanding of what it is to be a curator, as that is a career path I am considering.  This course involved weekly readings from various articles and different textbooks including, but not limited to Museums 101 by Mark Walhimer, Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge by Kiersten F. Latham and John E. Simmons, and Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, by Steven D. Lavine.  Aside from weekly readings, the course involved various field trips to local museums, library archives, and historical societies in which I’d interview professionals.  Additionally, some interviews were done over the phone as well.  For example, I interviewed former Allen Memorial Art Museum director and current New York-based art appraiser Anne Frances Moore.  Another important component was the day in which I shadowed Dr. Cory Korkow, the Associate Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  

    The final for the course was an exhibition that I put together with the advice from the various professionals that I’d interviewed.  So, throughout the course, along with the weekly readings and interviews, I also did my own research on a topic I was interested in, a topic that my exhibition would be over.  I am quite interested in French history, particularly 18th and 19th century France, as well as fashion history, so I decided that I wanted to create an exhibition that displayed how politics affected fashion throughout the late 18th century and early 19th century in France.  I did all my own research, compiled over thirty resources, wrote all the text, designed the layout, chose the images, had reproductions made, and brought in some of my own antiques to display.  I wanted to make the exhibit interactive, so I also included sound for ambience, scents, reproductions that visitors could interact with, and questions for viewers to ponder and to make contemporary connections with instead of simply overloading them with information.  The entire student body of the Middle and Upper School was invited, along with all the faculty, and the exhibition was written about in the North Ridgeville Press by Alison Stewart.  So, the rest of this page contains everything I have put together; I hope this lets you know a bit more about a subject that I am passionate about.