Jiaai He

Museums, as a continuation of the urban environment, enrich people's recreational life and also carry the mission of education. Museums protect culture outside a textbook and make history closer to people’s lives. However, the present museum has not reached an ideal state for the expression and embodiment of cultural objects. 

Time and history shape objects, and the objects inside a museum record and memorialize the period of their creation. Stories and contest behind cultural objects’ creation are integral to knowledge and understanding. What do we remember after a museum visit? Displaying the full range of historical content to the audience pays respect to the cultural object and to the culture. The task of museums is to communicate and generate an intimate connection of information to the public in order to have the exhibition engage viewers in new conversations about the meanings of objects.

Audiences will be able to deepen their understanding of the object from different perspectives without prejudice. In view of the relationship between museums and cultural objects, my thesis questions existing display methodology and how museum could reveal complexities of history in order to bring honor to even the smallest cultural object for audiences to see the layer by layer social context behind it. 

This thesis will emphasize the relationship between the audiences and the displayed object, allowing people to pause for a moment in front of the object to experience it within historical context. To balance the value of the cultural object and the stories behind it, the exhibition will work on the display system to connect the information with the exhibits, in this way enabling visitors to apply stories they have learned onto the object. The thesis proposes a special museum for the double-sided wooden comb from my hometown Changzhou, China, as a prototype for how to create exhibitions for regional cultural objects. Settled in a two-story building along the Grant Canal, the intervention distracts and transforms natural light, while a large string installation directs people’s attention to the combs. Creating a spatial experience for the viewing public, the strings will connect the objects with the content on the wall to present an integrated understanding of the social context hidden within the little wooden comb.

Combining with other regions and their cultural history, this mode of presentation can be extended to any region to contextualize the cultures and help people better understand the larger stories by providing people with a kind of autonomous way to explore.

Cultural object is a carrier of context, which carries information about human life in a specific moment of the historical process and in a defined environment and socio-political condition. The deepth and knowledge behind cultural objects are often unseen. The task of museums is to communicate and show the connection of those information embeded in the object to the public in order to have visitors engaging in new conversations about the hidden biography of objects.

Changzhou was a post-station along the Grant Canal, during Qing dynasty, Emperor Qianlong was attracted by the exquisite craft of the comb, and since then the double-side comb became a royal contribution.

Comb played many roles in the ancient time, from which we can see the social culture at that time. Making combs is a process that has been inherit from generation to generation.  In the flourishing age of combs, each family has numbers of people engaged in the comb industry. It is hard to imagine that a small little comb needs to go through seventy-two and a half steps in its production.

The exhibition is going to talk about these stories from different perspectives in the history, from the object itself of materials, making process, special meaning at the time, and then enlarge to wider story of the people making it, the city, and the political stories.

By considering the existing building structure, the roof is one of the most important elements to show the historic perspective. So the design is going to keep the deliciated roof structure. But since it need light for the interior space, the design will open a part of the flat roof top to become a light well. The window on south side will allow sunlight to come in during wintertime, the light well helps in spring and summer time.