ArtYard and the Museum of Everyday Life are renewing a call for submissions for Deep Seated, an exhibition set to open at ArtYard this fall. The submission deadline is Aug. 13.
Based in Glover, Vermont, the Museum of Everyday Life is a continually evolving museum project whose purpose is a slow-motion cataloging of life via ordinary objects of no monetary value yet immense consequence.
Curated by Clare Dolan, Deep Seated explores the Chair, an ancient piece of furniture still ubiquitous today. This exhibition will not take the form of a traditional gallery exhibition of artwork by individual artists centering on a particular theme. Deep Seated will instead cleave closely to the Museum of Everyday Life’s focus on artifacts, objects, and the stories they carry with them.
Instead of representations of chairs – paintings, prints, sculptures, films, or images in which chairs are a central element – Dolan is seeking things that populate quotidian experience — the uncomfortable folding chair a woman has kept through several moves simply because it was what she sat in when she wrote her first novel; a chair from the Eureka Schoolhouse in Springfield, Vermont, the last remaining one-room schoolhouse in the state; a miniature of the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey bought in a London gift shop in 1968 on a fateful trip taken by a Wisconsin family; an imitation plastic molded Eames chair that the owner’s aunt bought at a yard sale, thinking it was the real thing.
Dolan is interested in hearing from professionals whose practices are shaped by specific chairs — barbers, dentists, ophthalmologists, etc. She is also looking for writing about chairs with enormous cultural impact, like the electric chair or the bar stool. Additionally, she is looking for tools used in specific kinds of chair manufacturing and chairs made out of unusual material. The focus is exploring the question: How do we relate to chairs in our everyday life, and what do they mean to us?
Sometimes the volume of contributions received means that it may not be possible to display everything. The Museum of Everyday Life curatorial staff makes the final display decisions. To contribute to the exhibition, use the “Contact us” tab on the website www.museumofeverydaylife.org. Share briefly what you’d like to submit or suggest, and someone from the Museum of Everyday Life will reply to work out the details. Submission deadline is Aug. 13.
Once you have contacted us and confirmed that your submission will fit into the exhibition, we will work out delivery details to either Glover or Frenchtown.
Interested in participating in the exhibit installation? Community work days at ArtYard will be Oct. 4, 5, 11, and 12. Use the “contact us” form at museumofeverydaylife.org to let museum staff know when you plan to attend a work day, and to let us know if you have interest/skills in a particular area. No experience is necessary!
