Throw-Back Thursday for a New Year

That time in 2011 when my exhibition, Spic and Span, was written up in the Toronto Star by Peter Goddard:

Do you get YOUR vitamins?

“I can’t separate history from art or technology from material,” exhibition curator Maya Hirschman tells me in an email. “They inform each other and to a large extent form the basis for culture. Art and design are integral parts of our everyday life, from the shapes of our appliances to the furniture in our homes.”

It was a pretty spectacular feeling to see my work in a newspaper read by millions, with a reasonably articulate quote relating to my curatorial practice, about an exhibit for which I was quite proud.

Spic and Span was a lot of fun to curate, not only because it was jam-packed with vintage artefacts from an era when good design and aesthetics was still deeply important.  Using period advertisements throughout the exhibit, often paired with similar or matching artefacts, added powerful subtexts about gender rolls, sexism, consumerism, and marketing influences on societal norms.  

Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone !  Let's make 2015 in museums, heritage, art & culture a tremendously successful year, okay?!