Methods of Cataloguing

Part I

Chosen Collection: Curiosity Collections “What Women Want to Know”

Methods of Cataloguing

Recontextualising

• Highlighting the dual demands placed on women – both as domestic workers and as objects of beauty 
• Placing individual items from the collection into a visual catalogue side-by-side, placing them within a new context to change the meaning
• Depicts how societal pressures compare and overlap
• Reveal contradictions in the collection, such as the expectation that women be both graceful homemakers and constantly beautiful

Classifying

• Organising objects from the collection into categories (cleaning, cooking, beauty) 
• Creates a sense of the ‘interests of women’ as titled from the collection and highlights the sexism in this

Captioning and Subverting

• Subverting the message by reframing the context – contrasting tips from this outdated pamphlet with captions questioning its relevance in today’s society 
• Turning the catalogue from a passive archive to an active critique, challenging societal expectations of women

Part II

Feedback from my tutorial was that my third method of cataloguing where I turned the collection into a booklet was the most effective form for the message I was trying to get across, which is that the publications were sexist and very traditional. However, my group agreed that the third method’s captions did not add to the catalogue and did not ‘subvert’ the work in the way that I intended.

The course of action here was to combine the collages from my first methods with the third form and create a visual narrative in either animation or comics. I decided that it would be interesting to combine cutouts from the collection which features traditional and outdated publications on cooking, cleaning, and beauty, and combine that with newer publications I found to create a new narrative on the dualities of women.

(Collage from magazine cutouts)

Final Project