One of the ideas behind RÊVE was to ask scholars and museum curators to write micro-biographies of Romantic places or objects with the thought that writing a material history of European Romanticisms from the bottom up might produce suggestive juxtapositions or unexpected angles which would challenge or sophisticate usual assumptions about Romanticisms and Romantic-period cultures. Our collections construct and exploit such juxtapositions to tell wider stories about Romanticism, and this is an invitation to you to join in.
Begin by reading the introduction to RÊVE, look at the detailed guidelines for preparing a collection, and then spend some time exploring the existing collections, Then investigate the exhibition more widely. You are trying to pick up on suggestive connections between exhibits that might tend towards supporting a larger story. Now you are almost ready to join in.
You now have two options (not equally onerous!):
EITHER Write a couple of sentences (about 100 words) relating a recently posted exhibit or an exhibit that you have researched/created yourself to an existing collection. How does this exhibit substantiate or challenge the story told by the original collection?
OR Propose an entirely new collection. You can develop this either from existing exhibits, or from a mixture of existing exhibits and new exhibits generated by yourself and/or your classmates. You will need to think up a title and to write a short account of the collection (not more than 500 words).
If you feel short of ideas for a new collection, take a look at some of the suggestions here to spark your imagination.