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While reading Richard Fortey’s book, Dry Storeroom no. 1, I came upon the phrase “suitcase dioramas.” Fortey describes these as educational natural history containers that teachers can check out of the Chicago Field Museum for use in the classroom - portable science.
I loved the idea of transporting natural history displays out of their traditional museum setting. A seed became a project. The series has evolved to include repurposed art about natural history from the past few years into new, portable forms.
Each piece includes a vintage suitcase plus a variety of new and reused materials such as cut and collaged paper, entomology pins, Duralar, photographs and old book pages as well as tags from Inventory and wasps from Fade . The piece I Collect was a collaboration with my students from What’s Your Wunderkammer? Each participant answered two questions: What do you collect? and why do you collect it? Their answers are recorded on the brown and white tags that fill the I Collect suitcases.
Suitcase dioramas are also a part of the Artist Initiative grant I received for the fiscal year 2019. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
While reading Richard Fortey’s book, Dry Storeroom no. 1, I came upon the phrase “suitcase dioramas.” Fortey describes these as educational natural history containers that teachers can check out of the Chicago Field Museum for use in the classroom - portable science.
I loved the idea of transporting natural history displays out of their traditional museum setting. A seed became a project. The series has evolved to include repurposed art about natural history from the past few years into new, portable forms.
Each piece includes a vintage suitcase plus a variety of new and reused materials such as cut and collaged paper, entomology pins, Duralar, photographs and old book pages as well as tags from Inventory and wasps from Fade . The piece I Collect was a collaboration with my students from What’s Your Wunderkammer? Each participant answered two questions: What do you collect? and why do you collect it? Their answers are recorded on the brown and white tags that fill the I Collect suitcases.
Suitcase dioramas are also a part of the Artist Initiative grant I received for the fiscal year 2019. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Detail of Archive
I Collect includes tags written on by students. On the left, they responded to “What do you collect?” and on the right, “Why do you collect this?”
“What do you collect?”
“Why do you collect this?”
Archive, Taxonomy and Gradient on view at Duluth Art Institute's Lincoln Building as part of What’s Your Wunderakammer? 3D Collage Workshop
Gradient
Details of Gradient
Taxonomy on view in the studio
Detail of text tags in Taxonomy
Looking up and inside
More text detail in Taxonomy