So far in my life, museum visits have been fun, but objects never interested me beyond their aesthetics. Contemporary art interest me more. I like to find out why artists make their art and the hidden reasons behind them. However, a lot of times I’m not too interested in artefacts. I take them at face value. This project has for me shed a new light on museum artefacts. I learned what interesting stories objects tell if you take the time to read up about them. Every object tells so much about when they were made. They tell us the culture, the people who made them or received them, and even the political environment of the time.
Point is, they tell us so much about the human past, and play a really big part in helping people understand about humanity, how the world has changed, and are actual physical records of history! Most objects outlive humans and they carry on the legacy of their times…
This got me thinking, far in the future, commonplace objects we see today will become artefacts too! A modern sofa would be ancient, and laptops could be considered ancestors! It is a weird thought, but the culture of today will probably be studied by students in the future, and that just gets me thinking. It is fascinating. How everything evolves. What will it be like in the future and how much would society have progressed (or regressed hmm) before my time in this world ends? Internet culture is already so bizarre, it humours me how papers would be written about them.
Overall, I have learnt to appreciate museums and their artefacts more. I think every surviving object from the past is valuable, and I feel lucky to be able to learn more about them.
While the project is far from perfect, we altered out target audience and we did not achieve our ideal goals at the end, I think that I learnt a lot by trying to put myself in the shoes of children. I think we can all learn from children and be more outwardly curious, there is so much of the world to learn about!