In The Living Room, originally commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, I have transformed the museum's gallery into a modern "living room," allowing volunteers from the Museum's staff and management, local teachers and students, and others having long-term relationships with the Museum to act as hosts in that room. These individual hosts were invited to bring in their own collections of objects having personal or aesthetic significance to them, and engage visitors in dialogues about these. In this way, The Living Room revived the experience of personal sharing that had disappeared when Mrs. Gardner died. I have used the same approach with Taipei MoCA and the Govett Brewster Gallery, again inviting those with long-term relationships to participate. Every week, a volunteer will be selected to play the role of the living room's "host" and share his/her personal collection of treasured objects, transforming the exhibition room into an exhibition within an exhibition, and allowing the host and visitors to have personal encounters with the host and collection. This project raises questions such as, "Why do we collect?", "What does our collection say about us?", and "How do we relate to our collection?"
2015 Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan
2000 Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, Boston