Lend Me an Object?

Hello all! I'm gearing up for another Shine A Light evening at the Portland art museum this October. Last year I created a card game called Apples to Apples/Art and Labor (pictured here.) This year I'm facilitating a "Teaching Collection" and I can't do it alone. I need your help! Here is what I'm looking for...

Wanted: Locals (Portland area) to participate in a project titled “The Teaching Collection”

What your participation would entail:

1.) Visiting the Portland Art Museum with me (no cost to you) to explore their collections.

2.) Have a discussion with me about an object/s in the collection that have meaning for you; or the lack of an object with meaning for you.

3.) Select an item from your home that has meaning for you.

4.) Give me permission to photograph and display your object in the Portland Art Museum for one evening.

5.) Approval of or collaboration on an interpretive text that will accompany your object, and appear in a catalog of the project.

6.) Attend Shine A Light on Friday evening October 15th and tell people about your object.

Please contact me if you are interested, or want more information.

lendmeanobject@gmail.com
Thanks!

My intention is multifaceted. Conceptually I want to point to the fact that the majority of objects/works in the museum's collection once lived in someone's home, were part of someone's life/culture and had a personal meaning and function for that person. We look at these objects in a museum often to learn about how life was lived in a certain place and time, however we rarely know the relationship the original owner had to the objects we see.

I would like to honor the importance of our (everyday contemporary people) objects and the roles they play in our lives. It is my intention that the objects lent to this project will teach us something about one slice of one life right now in Portland. By putting participants objects and information about those objects within an institution I hope to inspire others to consider differently the things they live with and learn from.

I am also personally excited about what I will learn from this project.

I have no preference as to the type of object, it could be the most mundane, the most precious, or anything in between.