Critical Curation
In reading “Enhanced Critical Curation,” I’m first considering the ways in which those of us on social media are a sort of curator already - how we curate our feeds, our likes, our reposts. I wonder if museums can capitalize on this for a sort of interactive activity. Working with youth now and in the past, this is where my mind seems to wander. It could be a compelling prompt for visitors of a museum space to consider how they would curate an exhibit. Would they keep all of the pieces in a similar fashion? Is there something they think doesn’t fit? How would they rearrange?
Further, when considering the vast amounts of information that are at the tips of our fingers, as Burdick et al reference, it begs the question of how to curate for meaning and interrogation. As they assert, “the mere existence of vast quantities of data, artifacts, or products is no guarantee of impact or quality” (Burdick et al, 2012, p. 34). Supporting the thesis of the article, this makes the case for critical curation. How can curators aid visitors (whether online or in person) toward meaning-making? And how are curators meant to assess value, impact, and quality?