The Station Eleven Project: Museum Option
Read the directions carefully. There are several steps; be sure you don’t miss anything.
This assignment is worth up to 210 points per student. It is the major assignment of the semester. You cannot pass the class if you do not complete this project. Start early; work smartly and steadily.
Welcome to Concourse C
In Station Eleven, Clark began The Museum of Civilization because he wanted to preserve the memory of what came Before. His goal with The Museum of Civilization was to preserve civilization, and he put the artifacts in context–that is, he explained their role in life Before.
A museum is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary.
Museums are different from collections. A museum displays its items to the public. A collection may be kept private.
An artifact is an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest.
A curator is a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection. A curator is more than someone who dusts off the objects and artifacts, however. A curator’s job is to assemble, catalogue, and decide how to display the items to the public. The curator researches the field to see what is important and what is available, chooses what to buy, arranges for funding, applies for loans and grants, negotiates sales, arranges for any necessary restoration of the artifacts or objects, chooses how to exhibit the items, arranges for security, hires employees, promotes the exhibit, and anything else that needs to be done. In other words, a curator is the person who is ultimately responsible for the success of the museum.
Once you start looking for them, museums are everywhere. Some are the ones we usually think of: the L.A. County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Art Institute in Chicago; the Louvre in Paris; and more.
Others are smaller or less traditional, and some are downright strange:
- the Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho.
- the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico.
- the Condom Museum in Nonthaburi, Thailand.
- the Bunny Museum in Pasadena, California.
- the Salabh International Toilet Mueum in New Delhi, India.
- the Museum of Clean in Pocatello, Idaho.
- the National Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.
- the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia just outside of San Francisco.
- Leila’s Hair Museum in Independence, Missouri.
- The Thing Museum in Dragoon, Arizona.
And there are hundreds more. People of all types create and maintain museums which express and exhibit their interests. I have been to many, but my one of my favorites is The Museum of Jurassic Technology on Venice Blvd. in Culver City, CA (I will mention it again, and possibly again).
The Museum Project: To Begin
Create your own museum.
You don’t actually have to lease a property, collect items and display them; this will be a virtual museum. But you need to plan the museum which will preserve and display some set of artifacts that represent some aspect of civilization.
Choose the topic for your museum. Do you love old cars? Musical instruments? Rocks and minerals? Gems? Dolls? Stuffed animals? Tractors? Noodles? Nail polish? It can be anything.
To make this project interesting, you should choose something you have a genuine interest in, an interest you want to share.
Aside from that, you may find that the term “museum” has a lot of latitude. Is a collection of wax replicas of famous human beings a “museum”? Is the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland a museum? Is a library a museum? Is Graceland a museum? These may be questions you need to consider, depending on what you choose to exhibit.
The Various Steps
- Visit a museum. Take a picture of the ticket (or of yourself at the museum) and email it to me to prove you went. This is a requirement for everyone doing this project, whether working alone or in groups. YOU select the museum you want.You need to do this any time before the Proposal is due. While you’re there, talk to a docent (or if you are lucky, a curator); that would be a wonderful source.
If there’s a museum similar to the one you want to start, even better: go visit it. Want to start a children’s museum? Go see a couple of them and see what they’ve done. Think about what works. Think about what you would do differently.
And here’s great resource: Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders, by Lawrence Wechsler; the first half of the book is on the history of and nature of museums. The second half is on the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a quirky and wonderful museum on Venice Blvd. in Culver City. I strongly recommend that you go visit this museum-it’s an amazing experience. Here’s a link for more information:
The Museum of Jurassic Technology - Create a Project Proposal and submit it for approval (all Projects require Proposal approval); a sample proposal can be found in the Resources section on Etudes. You will need to turn this in BEFORE the final project. Check the Schedule for the due date for this piece of the project.
- Create a research paper showing what you researched and how you will use the information. For example, if you are going to create a museum on nail polish, you’ll need to do some research on nail polish: who invented it? Where? Are there any examples or pictures of ancient nail polishes? How did nail polish change over the years? What is different about today’s nail polish? And so forth. You will turn this in before the final project, so be sure to check the Schedule for the due date. The research paper should be a minimum of four pages and use at least three secondary sources (nothing like Wikipedia, please). The last (fifth) page of the research paper will be an MLA-format Works Cited page. This is worth 100 points.
- Your final project will include an overview of your museum, including a floor plan, a list of key artifacts in different sections of the museum, and a guided tour. This is worth 100 points.
- You may present this project in several ways: you may write a traditional paper with the necessary illustrations; you may create a PowerPoint presentation with audio and video, as appropriate; you may create a website (which may include audio and video, as appropriate, if you like); you may create a video (with a written script which you’ll turn in, along with a Works Cited list). If you have some other idea for the presentation, please check it with me first.
- Your research and all sources must be documented, and you must include a Works Cited list. (This may be in the form of credits at the end of a video, but it has to be there in some form.)
- A project title (it can certainly change)
- An overview of your project as you envision it.
- The museum’s Mission Statement.
- Preliminary research into the artifacts you will display.
Sample Projects:
You can see several sample projects in the Resources section on Etudes. These are actual students’ projects from past semesters. They are not all perfect, but they will give you some ideas about how to proceed.
The Proposal Is REQUIRED
Before you spend a great deal of time on the research, the invention, the writing, you will need to get a Project Proposal approved by me. Be sure you check the due date on the Class Schedule.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: I will not accept your final project if you have not had the Project Proposal approved. Then things roll down hill in a very unfortunate way–you will not get a score for this 200-point project; you will not pass the class.
The proposal itself is not hard, but it does require you to have given some serious thought to the subject of your museum, and to have done some research into the possibilites,, so you know what is available. The proposal must include:
A sample Museum Proposal can be found in the Resources section on ETUDES. Be sure to look at this before you turn in your own proposal.