Behind the Cabinet Doors: Memory, Collecting and Domestic Space

Abstract

This article focuses on the link between objects, as collection items and their relationship with living. The museographic approaches of the literary Samuel Quiccheberg (1565)Artificialia – Ars Mechanicae and its subsequent application in the exhibition Contained Anachronisms, Memory and Tools held at the College of Architects in Concepción (2023) are taken as a reference. Within the theoretical framework, the review of the scope of collecting is proposed based on the cabinets of wonders, cabins of variable dimensions that housed all types of singular objects. Its historical scope symbolized a source of artistic inspiration and a system of organization of museographic knowledge. Within this line, the exhibition proposed an alternative vision to disciplinary discourses in the field of architecture, using a non-traditional exhibition format. With this, it is proposed to relate the objects as a minimal artifact capable of projectively reformulating the architectural space in the cabinet of wonders, revealing the suggestive tension between the domestic and museum essence, where the objects play a crucial role in harmonizing the space, considering the variables: order, repetition and usefulness.