Object Stories

There's an exciting new interactive exhibition at the Portland, Oregon Museum of Art this month. It's called Object Stories.

Here's a description of the project:
The Portland Art Museum offers a unique opportunity to share your story about an object that is meaningful to you. Do you have something you would never give up? Like a favorite childhood toy, a military medal, or a memento? Something that lives on your wall, your mantle, or buried in a corner of your dresser? Something that evokes a time or person in your life, a place you miss, or something you hope for?

Check out the interactive story panel - I love the shifting photographs over audio. The descriptors — storytellers are asked to describe their story in six words — are so simple and evocative. You can even rearrange the stories within categories.


"There is no separation between objects and subjects." —Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology, University College, London (from the About Object Stories description on their website)

"Drawing from material culture, thing theory, anthropology, Museum education, and traditions of storytelling, Object Stories, the Portland Art Museum's new installation, is an open-ended exploration of the relationship between people and things, the Museum and the community, and the subjective and objective."

From a single, tangible object, stories from all corners of life emerge. And just as these stories are given life by the object, in turn they are reflected back onto the "objective" object - so that by the close of a story we the listeners view that object differently (and as we are listening, we likely form our own personal connections, tangible and intangible).

Maybe I'll bring in my glow-in-the-dark 7th grade full-leg cast, I'm going to see if I can convince my grandmother to bring in Colonel Catuna's hat. What would you bring?