While it is commonplace to think of the television as the electronic hearth, it is surely the refrigerator that serves as the family's comfort and control center.
-Akiko Busch, The Uncommon LIfe of Common Objects
Welcome to the Other White Cube Project - a museum-based educational study on one of the most popular display spaces, the common refrigerator. I created the Other White Cube Project in an effort to build stronger relationships between cultural institutions and the general public. Although museums attract millions of visitors per year, several studies have shown that visitors remain uncomfortable in museums. Most commonly, visitors expressed feelings of intimidation and inadequacy - that they didn't feel smart enough to enjoy themselves. Museums have responded by adding educational stations, programs, and more informational text to their exhibitions, but I believe the problem lies not in the comprehension of content but rather in the understanding of context. Visitors are left in the dark when it comes to how museums function - how they collect objects, organize them, and ultimately display them. Unless one finds the time to nab an internship or take a museum studies course, the opportunities to learn about the functions of museums are slim, and, as a result, museums continue to be perceived as elitist and esoteric institutions. In reality, I think they're simply misunderstood, but it's their problem, not the public's. Throughout museum history, content has been the major focus, but content is only half of the equation. Where and how something is shown - the context - equally contributes to the conception of art, and visitors must have an awareness of both halves to be truly informed. By giving due emphasis to context, museums would bring attention to their architectural features - windows, lighting, wall color, space - and other added aspects such as frames, pedestals, and display cases. The richness of these details and their affect on the perception of art are tremendous. Context enhances the viewing of art and deserves a prominent place as a topic in museum education.
The Other White Cube Project offers an educational crash course on how museums create meaning and construct knowledge. Foremost, they "curate" - the process of selecting, organizing, and arranging objects into a display. Curators make meaning by arranging objects into thematic patterns or groups. For art museums, common arrangements include time (19th century), place (France), media (painting), and subject matter (landscape). Other categories include gender (women) and identity (African-American). At home, our themes are not as grand but we nevertheless make similar choices. We arrange things by type (socks, shoes), color (red, blue), least to most favorite, and so on. We are all, therefore, curators of some kind, and the Other White Cube Project explores the refrigerator as one surface on which we curate our things. Join the emerging conversation on the importance of context and submit photos of your refrigerator displays.