Photoday | Galerie | MASTERCLASS 2016 | Justyna Wierzchowiecka, ENSAV La Cambre

"What is the specific gravity of the object, and did it move or was it still? Did it float or fly like a fish or bird? Is it massive like a boulder or a column? Was it worn like a sword, a cloak or a brooch, or held like a crosier? Did it move swiftly like a deer or a locomotive ? Was it held and caressed by hands like a violin, a book or a scroll painting? Did it sit like a chair or lie like a rug? And how many of these original qualities can be respected in the static framework of exhibition? To be sure all objects in a museum must be fixed, even though some turn by clockwork a scientific principle, but the air of deadly repose hanging over some museum halls breaths from a violation of the object’s physical nature." „Museum Studies” is a project that doesn’t actually study museums. The question is rather how the general idea of an institution is relevant nowadays, when everyone can be a curator through a simple act of religion, images of images, pieces, historical objects etc. seems to be enough and are easily available. Are the forms of presentation suggested by museums still needed? Is the institutional representation and traditional collections important in post-internet times?
 In my photographic work I use images as an excuse and raw material, rather than as a goal itself. I photograph museums and and what is in them, only to reinterpret and emphasize the cliches and the codes typical to them. This is a series, but the visual consistency is not what I am after. This project is rather a scrapbook and a research, than a thesis or a business plan on how to change the contemporary museum institution.