Museums of the present day: contemporary abandoned spaces
Date
2015
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Contemporary abandoned spaces house a unique material landscape in which the process of ruination has at once frozen time as well as materialized its passing. Objects are preserved, though fragmented, despite their position outside of societal remembrance strategies. Without being interpreted into a linear historical narrative, abandoned objects embody involuntary memories and enable the visitor to engage in a bottom-up interpretation model where objects speak for themselves. Forgotten objects, persons, and histories transform the ruin into a melancholic landscape in which material memories and emotions come alive. The materiality of memory and emotion evoke vivid imaginings of unknown past persons and past sensoryscapes as they emphasize the materiality of absence. The ruin allows for visitors to feel close to these imagined persons by encouraging visitors to engage with objects in intimate ways. The engagement with these sites and objects is the result of a contemporary turn to ruins. These ruins have been conceived of as alternative museums where traditionally marginalized persons and histories are remembered, and multiple and competing narratives are highlighted - characteristics that have driven the parallel turn to ruins in the museum sphere. The methodology of this study is two-pronged. First, I visited abandoned spaces throughout Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York to analyze the materiality of abandonment. Second, I conducted interviews with persons who have engaged this materiality. This approach allowed me to define the specific nature of the materiality of abandonment and the affective responses it demands. This study adds to a growing collection of works that explore the material culture of contemporary ruins. By applying material culture theory to my conclusions, I enrich these works by forging new avenues in material culture theory as I investigate the materiality of absence, memory, emotion, souvenirs, and marginalized histories, as well as more precisely define concepts such as object agency and material memory. Though the huge numbers of people that have turned their attention to contemporary ruins validates the study of these spaces and their objects, their study is truly justified by the limitless lenses abandoned spaces and objects provide to push material culture scholarship forward.