Apr 06
21
The Revolt of the Bees
While browsing the website of the Mandela Foundation, a non-profit arts and theory organization, I came across an interesting collaboration between Slought and the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The collaboration is an exhibit entitled (wonderfully) “The Revolt of the Bees: Wherein the Future of the Paper-Hive is Declared.” The exhibit’s purpose is to propose “a new culture of memory and archiving in the true spirit of the beehive.”
According to the summary, “The exhibition is comprised of eleven lessons extracted from a larger examination of beehive metaphors in the rare book and manuscript collections of the University of Pennsylvania. These lessons envision the archive of the future as an organization open to the infinite possibilities of its own becoming.”
Various lessons [should you read the PDF documentation] include: “The Hive is a Living Organism”, “The Hive Needs a Curator”, “The Hive Fancies Itself a Utopia”, and (my favorite) “The Hive is Cunning and Mercurial.”
“Cunning” and “mercurial” are, here, positive traits. The argument is that the point of curatorial practices should be “not to display objects, but to present a problem.”
Certainly this is the most theoretical library exhibit I’ve seen, and the installation art that accompanies it fascinates me. I love the idea of collaborating with local arts cooperatives, and using the collections to forward a hypothesis – as any article, essay, or book would do. I’m curious if there are collaborations you’ve all seen that challenge library’s to think beyond – or deeper into – their collections.