space is used – for example , the division between storage and exhibition , as well as the academic and curatorial inscription of collections into a time frame of permanent and temporary shows . For nothing any longer should be seen in disciplinary isolation , or be caught in the rut of academic divisionism and atomisation .
I wonder whether new formulations of higher education might extend more aggressively across the museum , the art school and the university ? Imagine how storage depots could become like a greenhouse for the diasporic and trans-disciplinary student body to nurture and curate constellations out of diverse collections ? Just like the interdependencies of the human metabolism , nothing would be seen in isolation ; it would become a reflection of temporary mutualities between artworks , people , objects , media , experiences , observations , laws , economies , climates and affects that challenge the exclusive monopolies of the museum and university to produce and control new diasporic knowledge , including visual representation . Moreover , today we can feel the palpable antagonism and impatience when adjacencies are performed that bring analogue materiality with its slow , stubborn permanence in proximity with digital speed . Frustration can often lead to a turn toward the immaterial , rendering collections practically obsolete except for heritage studies .
I would argue that all museum collections are like the liver , the earliest divinatory medium known to humankind . Everything passes through the liver ; it is like the imprint of a relational experience . To be read as oracular , liver-like collections need to be excised from their existing corpus or discipline in order to acquire contemporary intersectional meanings . For these to emerge or be revealed , the liver has to be placed within a set of circumstances and problematics that can provide a symptomatic analysis of the future . For example , a country goes to war , a person battles with another , a family seeks solace after death , all look for a route to the
6 . Metabolic Museum , Museum of History of Ukraine , Kyiv , 2015 . Photo by Clémentine Deliss
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Observing Memories Issue 6