Curation Assignment
A curator is someone who organizes and designs exhibitions for museums and galleries.
For this assignment, you are going to step into the role of a curator using the interface
provided at your Personal Page on the Road Scholar website. You will select a topic of
your own choosing, related to this course (examples could include thematic topics like
examples could include thematic topics like African Masking Traditions, Casta Painting
in Colonial Mexico, Northern Song Dynasty Landscape Painting, as well as biographic
topics like Marcel Duchamp and the DADA Movement). Once you have chosen your
topic and done in- depth research, you will write an introductory essay of 300+ words
explaining to your “viewer” the significance of your topic and your interpretation of it.
You will then create a minimum of three sections for your exhibit (EACH with its own
250+ word introduction). EACH SECTION should have a minimum of three images
(selected from the image database) related to your topic. Then, you will compose “wall
text” for each image (100+ word descriptions/analysis of the works and their
relevance to your topic).
This is effectively your major research paper for this course, amounting to the
equivalent of a 7-10 page paper (Note: This number is just for reference, as the entire
project is submitted online. You are not actually handing in a “paper”). You are expected
to do original and independent research (not just reference material from the course)
and you will need to use at least ten (10) appropriate bibliographic resources,
specifically published texts and peer-reviewed journal articles. Certain websites are
also acceptable, but should be from verifiable sources, such as museums, professionals or
university-level institutions (these should account for no more than half your resources).
Encyclopedias (whether traditional or online such as Wikipedia) can be referenced, but
will not count towards your ten-resource minimum. Use the +Add Reference panel at the
Curation Assignment Interface to enter appropriate references into your Bibliography.
Within the body of your curation assignment, use MLA-style parenthetical
documentation for noting paraphrased ideas and direct quotations (See Resources >
Tutorials). Parenthetical documentation should be present throughout your project in
order to demonstrate the quality and quantity of the independent research you have
conducted. You should, of course, use your own words as much as possible (unless
properly cited). Part of the online submission process for the website includes an
automated detection script which will tell me if you are plagiarizing from the textbook,
online resources and fellow students (so don’t!). Plagiarism will result in a failing grade.
Please note that this is an extensive project and extremely important to your overall
course grade. This is not the kind of project that can wait until the last minute to
complete. You are expected to be working on this assignment throughout the
semester. Conducting independent research is particularly time-consuming, as you will
often need to read multiple books/articles before you locate the information you need. If
you have never written a research paper before, I encourage you to go to the writing
center and to get assistance from the librarians in selecting appropriate reference material.
Selecting ‘the right topic for you’ is crucial to building a good Curation Assignment.
Don’t necessarily limit yourself to ‘art’ topics, but think about your own set of interests
and branch out from there. For example, a student interested in sports, might do an indepth
history of athletic stadiums – from the Coliseum to Mesoamerican Ballcourts to
modern stadiums like the Astrodome. I can add images to my database, if you need
them, but email me the links to the images (of a high enough quality – non-blurry, 600+
pixels in the longest direction) and the related info (title, artist, culture, date, etc) at least
one week before the deadline listed for Adding Images, so that I have time to get them
into the database.
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