Magazine - summer 03 - St. John's College

{Culture and Context} 19
From the charrette, says Allison,
all else follows.
Although each exhibit is
designed with a logical structure
(large labels, secondary labels,
then object labels), the visitor is
not expected to follow that structure,
Allison explains. “Usually
there is a personal connection that
draws you into the particular and
you go to the general from there.
If you see an object that interests
you, that evokes nostalgia, curiosity,
anger, love, you go and say
what is that? Why is it here? Then
you read the object label and if you
want to know more you go backwards
up the hierarchy. Museum
behavior is much more like being
in a shopping mall than reading a
history book. In a museum it is the
visceral connection with objects
that people come to seek out and
that serves as a guide for how they work their way through
an exhibition.”
In his upcoming exhibit, for instance, the logical structure is
the chronological presentation of 16 major U.S. conflicts. The
largest single object in the floor plan is a Huey Helicopter, an
icon of the Vietnam War. “Helicopters were used in the Korean
War,” notes Allison, “but in Vietnam it was the first time they
were used to provide mobility and remove wounded, as well as
perform other missions. [Vietnam] was the first helicopter war.”
Another significant group of artifacts is the chairs that Robert
E. Lee and U.S. Grant sat on at the surrender at Appomattox and
the table on which Lee signed the surrender document. These
articles of furniture have been in the Smithsonian’s collection
for a long time, and are often exhibited against a painting of the
surender. But for the new exhibit, Allison will place them in a
context of discord rather than harmony.
“This was, in some respects, our country’s most divisive war.
But these two men knew each other, they had fought together in
Mexico. When you show the meeting of the two men sitting in a
room signing the surrender document, you capture their familiarity
and the simple nature of the surrender. But you have
not captured the meaning of the war.” To remedy this, Allison
will exhibit the furniture against a collage of battle scenes to give
visitors a greater sense of the cost of war.
dave lachapelle
living history: Emily Murphy
made an 1840s-style dress to
wear for the Nathaniel
Hawthorne bicentennial
celebration in Salem, Mass.
Allison’s bold departure exemplifies
the power of the curator as
storyteller: no illustration, no captioned
photograph, no chapter in a
book could convey both the violence
of the war and the brother vs.
brother intimacy of its context
with such visceral immediacy.
That powerful connection isn’t
as strong in other media, says
Emily Murphy (A95), a longtime
student of the elegant use of artifacts.
Murphy is a Ph.D. candidate
in American studies and a park
ranger at the Salem (Mass.) Maritime National Historic Site, who
recently completed an internship with the Peabody Essex Museum
in Salem. Many people are content with surfing the Web to learn
about history or art, says Murphy—a “terrible loss” in her view.
“Seeing something in real life is a very personal interaction
that I just don’t think you get with an image on a computer
screen,” she says. “Being able to go to the National Gallery and see
the Leonardo da Vinci portrait there, to see the depth of color, the
brushstrokes, and the slight three-dimensionality of the layers of
the oil paint—no matter how well-photographed something is, you
don’t really get that.”
In addition to the level of detail a real-life museum visit grants its
visitors, there is another advantage to beholding the real thing.
“The actual piece creates a connection,” Murphy explains. “All of
us in our own lives have artifacts that we consider valuable. To be
able to say, ‘this was my great-grandmother’s’ is very important to
an individual. Museums are doing that on a larger scale. Instead of
saying ‘this was my great grandmother’s,’ they’re saying ‘this was a
part of history.’”
Original artifacts are most valuable in creating a connection, but
Murphy also works as a living history interpreter, and she is quick
to acknowledge that reproductions also have their place. “Reproductions
are valuable because they allow people to handle artifacts.
Clothing is a great example of this. You do not want to wear antique
{ The College • St. John’s College • Fall 2004 }