This are images of the objects presented in the museum. They represent the gaze of the visitors who made that photos or videos. As such, they reflect on how people perceive the settings of the TM, how the tour the sections and relate with objects and installations.
In my opinion, many of this images and specially, the series of images made by single visitors, reflect the arbitrariness and fragmentary nature of the museum installations. Instead of concentrating on the objects displayed for us, visitors focus on the ways that those objects are actually being presented. For me, the question that arise looking this images is: Does the TM makes sense? How are the exhibited objects connected? Are they? What is it saying about the cultures that is trying to represent? How is the TM saying what it is saying? What kind of strategies do they use, what kind of objects do they exhibit and how they exhibit them?
In my opinion, the material archived under this category reveals the impossibility of extracting a global notion of the culture or objects being exhibited in each section of the museum. Instead, by presenting such a broad variety of objects in such diverse ways, the museum undermine their purpose of teaching a generalizing comprehension. However, objects and exhibits, liberated from an embracing narrative, become a fertile territory for the visitor to create their own stories: intimate recounts that follow their own logic, many times, incomprehensible for anybody else.
Also, the eclecticism of the installations, seems to give visibility to the museum itself as an conceptual institution and as a physical building with material objects inside. Many of the collected images of this project point the physical settings -vitrines, furniture, installations- as the center of attention. One can ask if the TM is nowadays an anthropological museum or a museum about the museum. Their strategies apparently, are so evident for the visitors, that is easier to focus on them rather than the objects they contain.
A- The face of Latin America: Series of photos made by one visitor in the Latin american section
B- Isolated fragments: Images made by many visitors, that show the uniqueness of each object and installation
C- Series Man & Environment: Series of photos made by one visitor in the section Man & Environment
D- Series Red: Series of photos made by one visitor in the exhibition Red
