Museum of Single Persons - Proposal

PROPOSAL FOR

CANCAN HUANG HUA13407763 CTS: EXHIBITION DESIGN AND CURATION

WHAT IS MUSEUM OF SINGLE PERSONS?

the graphics shows, the percentage of single people in London is obviously much more than other areas.

Being single is a kind of general feeling and a physical status. It does not matter, we were born single as individuals or single in a relationship. When people are single, they are somehow expecting to meet someone to share all about themselves. You must have fleeting thoughts about ‘I do not want to be alone anymore’. It could be for a movie time, for a dinner out and etc.

Nowadays especially in London, life goes too fast.

People are always busy and stressed, everyone is running to get the train. There is nothing that could stop them from their routine. Humans are more interested in sharing online rather than experiencing the environment and the people they are surround by.

The worst scenario is during peak hours when people

Museum of Broken Relationship, Croatia

The idea of Museum of Single Persons is initially inspired by Museum of Broken Relationship which is based in Croatia. It collects personal objects left over from former lovers, accompanied by brief description. I visited it in Taiwan in 2013 when they became famous and had a world tour. It is an object-based exhibition, every object is carefully positioned on an acrylic box with the light from the bottom, and a brief story comes at the side.

The idea of Museum of Broken Relationship was fascinating. It attracts over 200,000 people to visit the site by collecting and sharing these beautiful stories. After that, the idea of Museum of Single Persons begins as a personal point of view. These objects former lover donated represent their passed relationship. What about those single people? The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released data that shows 51% of people in England and Wales are single in 2014. (Office for National Statistics,2014) As

ONS released latest data.

on public transport are all looking at their screens.

Twenty years ago, when there was no social network, no wi-fi connection and technological devices, people were used to make friends much more easier. It could all start from a smile or a simple word.

Do you ever heard of Six Degrees of Separation?

Theoretically and experimentally, everyone and everything is six of fewer steps away, by introduced from any other person in the world. Some people quit their jobs and look for adventures during a long lonely travel, but why not just start to talk to a stranger that stands next to you when you are queuing? Those socalled ‘mutual friends’ on Facebook are actually very close to you. (Zhang, L.& Tu, W., 2009)

‘According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces.

Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.’

Plato, The Symposium People are born single but they spend their life looking for that special person that would perfectly match with them and will make a change in to their lives. A person that loves you, that takes care of you, that helps you to grow and become a better individual.

Relationships on Facebook

Therefore, the Museum of Single Persons is here to help people who are looking for someone to love.

And to hit the barriers of loneliness and individualism that now are part of our society. As Mentioned before, nowadays it is hard to get closer to someone new. So the Museum of Single Persons will aim to collect all the thoughts, quotes, moments of single people, in a sharing way. If you are expecting to meet someone magically, you might want to get involved and start your adventure here.

WHY WOULD BE INTERESTING?

START WITH CONVERSATIONS Interviews have been going on for a few weeks. Overall, nineteen undergraduate s t u d e n t s f ro m d i ff e re n t b a c k g ro u n d s and cultures have been questioned. The respondents are aged 22-35, 5 males and 14 females; mostly are single, two are in the relationship, one is married. They all show their strong interests in this topic.

Firstly, the conversations started focusing on the participants’ general opinion about the museum of single persons. Secondly, people have been asked about sharing their thoughts about being single or in a

relationship. Moreover, expectations of the exhibition have been questioned. Reflection about finding a solution to the single status was evaluated in order to make the project realistic and valuable.

Obviously, they had loads of thing to complain about. Kaven even wrote a full paragraph with related scenes from several movies. Margherita stated that she does not feel ready yet to get into a new relationship but she would still be willing to experience and meet new people at the Museum

of Single Persons. Overall, respondents identified the need to solve this problem urgently. But the museum is not an offline Tinder, it is not possible to find the perfect lover immediately. However, the museum will try to guide singles into a new adventure through the development of personal thoughts and concrete experiences with new people.

MEMORY & FORGETTING In Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Curating But Were Afraid to Ask, Hans Ulrich Obrist mentions Forgetting many times and he said the exhibition is an approach to avoid forgetting by exhibiting the collection.

(Obrist, 2013) Besides, refer to the study of forgetting curve by Ebbinghaus, certainly it happens generally not only with the age increasing. (Cherry 2007) It is fascinating that people always keep thing on their phone or notebook but not in mind. For this reason, the wall of sharing being single can be considered as a huge notebook or hashtags

to collect all words the visitors might want to say. As the time goes on with more and more shared memory, it becomes an archive of sharing being single.

In the last part of physical experience Answer these questions, the connection is stronger. If you need to introduce yourself to a stranger, where would you start? In a real case, people might start a conversation referring to their timeline: where they born, where they grow up, where they went to school‌ But in the Answer these questions room, the memory

would be re-structured by different level of experience and they would no longer be chronological. This aspect will be extremely helpful as during the conversation irrelevant facts will not have to be considered. In fact, participants will be free to talk about whatever they would consider important. Visitors will expose their touchable inner space and will be more willing to build affections straight away.

RULE OF THE GAME ‘Exhibition-making often has to do with rules of the game.’ (Obrist, 2006) The rule of the game he mentions is for artist. In the Museum of Single Persons the rule of the game is for the audience. It plays between surreality and reality. To take some movies as examples, such as the film Her which is about the relationship between a man and an intelligent computer operating system personified through a female voice, they start in another world and play with their rules. The audience starts to understand their behavior and their choice when they go with the story.

It depends on the environment, an exhibition can also create a surreal scenario with new rules in a parallel universe.

Back to the Answer these Questions, when audience goes with the rationale of exhibition they will realize the experimental part is not easy to approach in real life or it will never happen in real life. They are now in a game and people always love games because the rules bring them freshness and excitement.

Maybe they could dream this for thousands of times, now it is a good chance to experience and it might make a big change to their lives.

In 512 Hours by Marina Abramovic last summer at Serpentine Gallery, when visitors walk in they become part of the performance.

Visitors are not allowed to take any electronic equipment. Some staff will randomly hold visitors’ hands and walk with them in a line of three; or they will lead visitors to stand on the stage with eyes closing. It is absolutely quiet and no one is busy taking any photos.

Everything enjoy the peaceful time being there and visitors can stay as long as they want. The rules are stricter in this show. The surreality becomes real.

512 Hours, Serpentine Gallery

WHAT WILL BE ON DISPLAY?

Experience

directed by Kristof Brandl PART ONE: EXPERIENCE The visitors will be immersed in a reflection stage in which a video Experience directed, edited & filmed by Kristof Brandl, music by musician Angele Dubeau and Ludovico Einaudi will be showed. The 5-minute video starts with a quote ‘There are two great days of a person’s life – the day we were born and the day we discover why.’ It shows several stories between lovers, fighting couples, children and a newborn baby.

For the first scene of the museum, the video hopefully will give visitors an idea to experience the different relationships of love and think about how life is being single or being sharing with someone. It will be a motivation for visitor to develop some sort of thoughts at the second stage after they watch movie.

Click here to watch the video.

Duration: 5 minutes 20 seconds

The wall of

Being-single Collection PART TWO: THE WALL OF BEINGSINGLE COLLECTION According to the preeminent curator Walter Hopps’ idea 36 Hours project at the Museum of Temporary Art, Washington, USA in 1978, everyone can bring a single art piece to the location during 36 hours without any rejection or censorship, and Hopps will adopt it with his way. The key of this project is that everyone has the same rights within that environment. There is no distinction between artists and audience. At that time, any boundaries are blurred by curator. (Crilly, 2011) In the case of the wall of being-single collection, same thing happens. The audience contributes through their piece of quotes in the creation of the first installation of the exhibition. In this way, the audience will become the artists. Audience and artists ideas and thoughts will get mixed well

together. This element will make visitors more engaged and immerged in the exhibition.

The wall of being-single collection will be presented on a white wall with written in big size capital letters ‘In which moment, you wish you were not single?’ The audience will be able to write their answers on the wall with black marker. engaged and immerged in the exhibition.

The wall of being-single collection will be presented on a white wall with written in big size capital letters ‘In which moment, you wish you were not single?’ The audience will be able to write their answers on the wall with black marker.

First Kiss PART THREE: FIRST KISS Director Tatia Pilieva and Wren Studios collaborated for the film project First Kiss, which features several couple strangers bringing the cold ice to hot lingering levels. Although audience can still feel the natural awkwardness and shyness of them, while watching the beauty of kisses is still conveyed.

A similar scenario will be created in the Museum of Single Persons. Out of the second room the First Kiss video will be showed, those people that would love to get into the room will join the first kiss project. Two separate queues for male and females will be created out of the room.

Male and females will not be able to see each other while queuing as they will be positioned in opposite sides. The two selected partners will only have the chance to see each other inside the room. In order, not to make the audience feel too uncomfortable the concept video has been slightly modified. In this way, the partners paired could either choose to hug or kiss each other. The idea is to make the ‘single audience’ feel more confident after having experienced a physical contact with a new person.

Duration: 3 minutes 29 seconds.

Click here to watch the video.

Answer these questions PART FOUR: ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS Dr Arthur Aron, who runs the interpersonal relationships Lab at Stony Brook University, NYC, with his colleagues, published a paper in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin on “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness” in 1997. They did tests on pairs of strangers to experiment if they can make quickly bond and form close relationships. Reading through all the questions, they emphasize self-disclosure and relationship-building tasks, and they gradually escalate in intensity. Pairs share about all these big questions related to environment they raised, the dream they have, the best and worst situation they have ever had, after nearly an hour asking and answering questions, ‘they felt unusually cl o se to th e pers on t h ey h ad s hared questions with’.

Back on the topic of Museum of Single Persons, to make a connection, Dr Aron’s project could be a perfect way to start a conversation with someone new and quickly build a close relationship. This is exactly the “Adventure”, an interactive and contextual experience. “In a kind of sharing game”, people are doing things they usually do not do. Study shows by scientists at the University of Essex that people are more willing to answer the question and take part into the game.

I n a n i n t e r a c t i v e w a y, a ro o m w i l l b e separated from the main exhibition. In this Answer these questions room, pairs of chair with a small coffee table will be set well in the room. A list of questions will stick on the table. Several rules will be included: Once you sit down, please wait for someone to sit opposite to you. Take a turn on

answering these questions. Enjoy the time of conversation, and you are allowed to leave (maybe with this someone) after you finish questions. It approximately takes 45 minutes.

The 36 questions shows in following page.

At the end of these stages, the visitors would have developed two reflection experiences as ‘input’ with Experience and The wall of being single collection, and two physical experiences as ‘output’ with the First Kiss and Answer these questions. Ideally after all, visitors have developed a process from share thoughts to take actions to meet new people.

1

Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2

Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3

Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you're going to say?

Why?

4

What would constitute a perfect day for you?

5

When did you last sing to yourself ? To someone else?

6

If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you choose?

7

Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8

Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9

For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10

If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11

Take four minutes and tell you partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12

If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?

13

If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14

Is there something that you've dreamt of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?

15

What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16

What do you value most in a friendship?

17

What is your most treasured memory?

18

What is your most terrible memory?

19

If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20

What does friendship mean to you?

21

What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22

Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23

How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people's?

24

How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

25

Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "we are both in this room feeling..."

26

Complete this sentence "I wish I had someone with whom I could share..."

27

If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28

Tell your partner what you like about them: be honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you've just met.

29

Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30

When did you last cry in front of another person?

By yourself ?

31

Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32

What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33

If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to ommunicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?

34

Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35

Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36

Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

WHERE WOULD IT BE?

SERPENTINE GALLERY KENSINGTON GARDENS, LONDON

The Serpentine Gallery. Photograph Š 2007 John Offenbach

Serpentine Gallery is incredibly located in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, beautifully surrounded by a huge natural space. It is not featuring the most convenient location but the most peaceful place.

It is definitely a good start if you are expecting some adventure going on in the gallery.

Serpentine Gallery has a great reputation as a contemporary art gallery and it always brings ambitious ideas to public. It is one of the most popular galleries in Central London attracting up to 800,000 visitors to its exhibitions with free admission and open seven days a week. Comparing it with Tate Modern with almost 6,000,000 visitors yearly, it is still a quite place during the week, not much visitors and perfect for enjoying exhibition, it is better for engaging the visitors and leave them an impressive experience. Therefore, it creates highly potential to putting Museum of Single Persons a better place.

MAP

[4] ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS

[3] FIRST KISS ROOM

[3] FIRST KISS VIDEO

[2] THE WALL OF BEING SINGLE COLLECTION

[1] EXPERIENCE

ENTRANCE

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Official Page: Museum of Broken Relationship Museum of Broken Relationship. (2010). [Internet]. Available from: http://brokenships.com [Accessed 20 March 2015] 2. Exhibition: Museum of Broken Relationship, Taipei Museum of Broken Relationship (2013). Taipei: Huashan1914 Creative Park. 20 July – 01 September 2013 3. Office for National Statistics (2014). The single population increased between 2001 and 2011. [Internet]. Available from: http://www. ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/how-have-livingarrangements-and-marital-status-in-england-and-wales-changedsince-2001-/summary.html [Accessed 20 March 2015]

psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/p/forgetting.htm >[Accessed 20 March 2015] 12.Abramovic, M (2014). 512 Hours, London: Serpentine Gallery. 11 June – 8 August 2014.

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6. Pinna, R. (2015). Interview with the author. London, 1 March.

[Interview about the idea of Museum of Single Persons].

17. Tatia Pllieva (2014) First Kiss. [Internet]. Available from:<https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpbDHxCV29A>[Accessed 20 March 2015]

7. Zhang, K. (2015). Interview with the author. Online, 1 March.

[Interview about the idea of Museum of Single Persons].

8. S, Huang. (2015). Interview with the author. Online, 18 March.

[Interview about the idea of Museum of Single Persons].

9. Morra, M. (2015). Interview with the author. London, 1 March, 8 March, 18 March. [Interview about the idea of Museum of Single Persons].

10. Obrist, H. (2013). Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Curating But Were Afraid to Ask. 1st ed. China: Zhen Xing Press.

11. Obrist, H. (2011). Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Curating (Foreword by Tino Sehgal Afterword by Yona Friedman).

Sternberg Press 12. Cherry, K. A. (2007). Forgetting. [Internet]. Available from <http://

18. Wired.co.uk (2011). David Rowan’s Blog. How to find true friends (and love) in 45 minutes 10 Mar [Internet blog]. Available from: <http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-11/08/how-to-find-lovein-45-mins>[Accessed 20 March 2015] 19. Ehrenfeld, T. (2013) 36 Questions to Bring You Closer Together.

[Internet]. Available from :< https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ open-gently/201310/36-questions-bring-you-closer-together>[Accessed 20 March 2008] 20. E-flux. Serpentine Galleries [Internet blog]. Available from: <http:// www.e-flux.com/client/serpentine_gallery/>[Accessed 20 March 2015] 21. Association of Leading Visitor Attraction. (2014). Latest Visitor Figures. [Internet]. Available from:<http://www.alva.org.uk/details. cfm?p=423>[Accessed 20 March 2015]