June 26^th || “Art of Space is a social interaction installation that reflects society,” said Gerard Nadeau at the lecture in the Hand Art Center. In the lecture, Mr. Nadeau described both the philosophical and intellectual perspective of what the purpose of his installation was. In a way, the larger idea for Art of Space was how humans have the ability to control and manipulate space and time. “We create events out of construction. We locate in a particular place. We create community. We (as humans) know one another. (And like) art , (humans) has a role.” So, for the two weeks Gerard Nadeau was here, I took the opportunity to interact with Mr. Nadeau in his installation work and understand what his perspectives is as an artist.

For his installation, the question was: What is nature?  For Nadeau, he wanted participants to answer the question all on our own and if we asked him if our answer was right, he would say that it was up to us to decide that. Mostly, people have positive perspective of what nature was. Only a small faction of participants wrote the negative aspects of nature however; Nadeau said that they’re answer were legitimate too since Nature in a way, reflects Society (and vice versa).

Note: One of my wood slate answered, “[Like humans,] nature [also] endures [the obstacles thrown at them].”

For Mr. Nadeau, he wanted to make his installation to describe that a place is a possibility which builds the system of society; it drives the human unconsciousness question of “what is our role (in creating space, in being society)?”

As the internship nearly ends, I understand that it is not only a curator’s job to manage the records of the collection but, it is also to understand the artists passion and how the museum as a place can help build a system for the art collections we have either preserved or have borrowed from other museums/artists.