Cabinet of Curiosity

Museum of Exploration

Foam board, straight pins, tape, fabric, air-dry clay, gold leaf, paper, plastic leaves, balsa wood, and hot glue.
15" x 22.5" x 8"

My Cabinet is entitled Museum of Exploration because, based on my reading from the book To Have and to Hold, the idea of exploration, how to obtain rare and valuable items, and how to display them were the main focuses that inspired my ideas. 

Sir Hans Sloane was a famous collector in Europe who traveled to Jamaica to discover more plant species. As a result of this voyage, he created a catalog of 800 different plant species. This discovery inspired the first artifact that I made. It is a boat with a base made from plastic plant leaves and sails made of hot glue butterfly wings. There are numerous plants and butterfly species that Sir Hans Sloane collected which allowed him to obtain his reputation as a famous and experienced collector. My second artifact was inspired by the amount of money and trade that Sir Hans Sloane had to participate in to develop his collections. The rhombus shape made from air-dry clay and coated in gold leaf gives the illusion of an odd form of currency related to a collector’s trade. The currency is characterized by insects that most collectors start their fascinations and experiments with.

The inclusion of the curtains and triangle top was inspired by Charles William Peale’s views on how art and collections should be displayed in museums. Peale believed that art and artifacts resembled a sense of permanence and should be treated as so. By adding curtains, every time the object was viewed it was completely new to the viewer. I also added a carpet to show isolation to the specific artifacts giving them their own sense of space and story alongside the curtains. I kept the colors of these additions close to those of nature to enhance the feeling of the initial voyage. 

Diagram