Curatorial Magick

You are in a room and it is full of Stuff. Piles of it in no discernible order. You are now told that this Room of Stuff is your life.

What to do first? Tidying up wouldn’t be a bad plan.

So you try to bring order to the Stuff. Some Stuff is similar. You put these things together in trying to make a Tidy Room of Stuff. Other Stuff has certain links to other Stuff. Slowly, the Stuff becomes organised to your own taxonomy. The process requires much upkeep to stop it turning back into a pile of Stuff again. You label things. You arrange things on shelves. You can give everything identifying numbers and locations if you so wish. You may even wish to find out more information about your stuff.

You may now take some pride in your Organised Room of Stuff. What next?

What if I was to tell you that through a system surrounded by mystery and more complex than any ritual of the occult, you could make your Stuff… Better?

There are two reactions, either side of a very thin line of definition. The first is, “How can I use this to make the Stuff more interesting, significant and as exciting to others as it to me?”. The other is a variation along the lines of, “How can I use this for myself?”

The difference between the two reactions is slight because someone with the first may very well become famous or well-known just as someone with the second reaction may very well make some interesting connections and get people excited. The two sides of Curatorial Magick can easily spin around or balance or become a perversion or the other.

Not once have I given any name to your Organised Room of Stuff. Many of you will assume it is a museum store. It could easily be a stockroom of shoes or a pile of books.

The first side of Curatorial Magick is old, academic and very hard to master. The second side is relatively new, borrowing meanings from other places. It is quick, easy and “push-button”. The First side could turn the shoes into part of a museum and the books into a library or an archive. The world of Commerce is very interested in this second side, where the shoes are merchandise and the books are in a bookshop window display. It appears to the world of Commerce that all you need to say to steal the gravitas of the first side is “Curated By…”, thus improving potential sales especially if the supposed curator is famous enough. “Every Sports Shoe on sale was are Curated By…”, “This Year’s Summer Book Club is Curated By…” You can tell which form of Curatorial Magick is in play by how keen they are for you to buy something.

Let us not forget that both Culture and Fashion use the word “Collection”.

There are people around the world performing all forms of the Curatorial Magick. Some are true masters in changing the perception of objects and the people who view them. Others are only inspiring people to the hedonism of consumable goods. I will also say there must be practitioners of variable successes and without clearly defined paths as to where they fall. It depends on what they find in their Room of Stuff as well.

Those on the outside will struggle to spot the difference. It is easier to generalise the intellectually impenetrable. Name everyone a Curator and label a mundane collective of tasks “curation”. Choose, select, publish and put your name on it. Voilà, apparently, you’re now a curator. This method requires an increasing force of personality behind it so it can be successful. Renown will influence people to like what you like. Then you’re a marketing executive’s or brand manager’s dream.

Oh, you want to be a master of the first method? The one that inspires cultural enhancement? The money and the fame do not interest you as much as effecting True change? For that, your Curatorial Magick has to be powered by the force of your own Will.