Kammer 21C with Artist Stephen Ausherman

At the turn of the 17th century, cabinets of curiosity were the rage in Europe. Curators of these wunderkammern lacked standardized systems of classification and instead developed imaginative ways to explain the significance of their bizarre acquisitions. As interpretive exhibits, the collections were often mystifying, if not marvelous to contemplate.

Kammer 21C is a 21st-century adaptation of the wunderkammer in the sense that it favors personal meaning over academic quantification as a method of interpretation. But rather than collect exotic physical specimens and artifacts, K21C participants captured digital images and sounds from local sources, including field trips, interviews and found objects, as well as contributions from other groups in the Blue Sky Project. They then arranged their data according to personal significance. Nostalgia, abstraction, poetic expression, and communal legend influenced this creative process. They shared media files to develop meaningful contexts between otherwise loosely related sounds and images. The result is an interpretive display that instills a sense of wonder with a familiar place.

K21C participants bestow curatorship of this virtual wunderkammer to Involvement Advocacy with the hopes that it will someday house a growing collection of images, music, and video by other Blue Sky Project artists.

Student Artist
Robin McGuire, Spring Grove
Columbia College, BFA 2008

Emily Newbold, McHenry
Alyssa Secreto, Huntley
James Tomaso, Woodstock
Jacob Wiegman, Cary