In "Theorizing Religion" today, students had 20 minutes to design an exhibition on world religions. We'd all been to see religion-related exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History, and taken a virtual tour of the Museum of World Religions in Taiwan. We've also read critiques of the very category of "world religions." I suggested it would be good to agree on the kind of space to fill - how many rooms, etc. - and someone suggested a circular hall, which I gave a single entrance.
Twenty minutes later we had three compelling and compellingly different exhibitions. One let viewers choose whether to start with "Practices" or "Death, Rebirth, Afterlife," or head straight toward "Divinity, Higher Powers," or intervening shows of texts and places of worship - each a medley of multiple traditions. In the middle of the room is an area for sitting and engaging the other senses, from scent to sound. Pamphlets with analyses by scholars and theologians are available as viewers enter. The space has a dome-like ceiling across which various cosmic and celestial images play.
Another group imagined a constantly changing space, with semi-translucent screens hanging from the ceilings which viewers can move around at will. Each screen carries images of various elements of traditions and practices from around the world on both sides, photographs as well as artworks, some moving, which each viewer encounters in a different maze-like configuration. It is hoped that viewers feel free to rearrange images. Near the center of the space is a staircase to a platform from which viewers can watch the constant dance of images and people below. The exhibit can be entered and exited from any side.
A final group went in the opposite direction. Visitors to "PATH" have a single tunnel-like trajectory, and see exactly the same things as every other visitor, in exactly the same sequence. On the way into this labyrinth, they see art works inspired by religious experiences, arrayed chronologically. No work is marked in terms of ethnicity, nationality or geography, but mixed among the works are descriptions of historic overlaps. At the labyrinth's center, viewers arrive at the present day, then wind their way out, this time encountering videos of contemporary phenomena. Images would again be hung from the ceiling, allowing viewers to see the feet of other visitors to the labyrinth (albeit going in the opposite direction).
Which would you like to visit - or curate?
