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Scrapbook (the story of things)

The starting point for this research was the Sir Harry Page Collection of Victorian Scrapbooks in the Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections, identified by the museum as under-utilised and difficult to make accessible. Carson employed the concept of the scrapbook as a methodological framework, to support multiple forms of ordering, logic and cross-cutting presentational strategies, thereby enabling new representations and interpretations. The work investigated Pearce’s observations on collections (1995) and Breton’s idea of "objective chance" (1938), in order to generate and present new insights around specific museum collections.

Carson’s research (http://www.specialcollections.mmu.ac.uk/exhibitions.php) treated a series of collections, as artists’ materials rather than museum artefacts. His work experimented with methods of interpreting these different collections by juxtaposing them in novel ways, informed by historical ideas such as the ‘cabinet of curiosities’. The research references De Landa’s (2002) conception of ‘flat ontology’ and Turkle’s (2007) work on 'evocative objects', while building on work by artists such as Wilson, Hurlbut and Dion (2003–08).

The exhibition adopted the metaphor of a three-dimensional scrapbook, using the gallery as its pages, and was accompanied by an artists’ book, also in the form of a scrapbook. This publication was subsequently acquired by Chetham’s Library (http://www.chethams.org.uk). In combination with a commission for curatorial advice, the artists’ book formed the basis of an exhibition at Bury Art Museum.

This multimodal investigation of the museum's collections is of relevance to artists, archivists, curators, museum educators, historians and theoreticians. The research was disseminated at the international, interdisciplinary conference 'Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet' in the US (http://www.shu.edu/news/article/322675#.UoIYWpEj1ws). Carson was guest editor (with Miller) of a double issue of the e-journal 'Image [&] Narrative' (2011) entitled ‘The Story of Things: Reading narrative in the visual’ (http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/issue/archive). Carson (with Miller) also contributed the article “Scrapbook (a visual essay)” to the journal. (http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/158).