Collaborative Curation Lab
Since the advent of the modern museum, disciplines like anthropology, archaeology, art history, library
science, and the performing arts have played a role in the collection and presentation of human culture.
But at UVA, the people doing such work are housed across different units, making it difficult to bring
their experience and knowledge together in a mutually potentiating way. The Collaborative Curation Lab
seeks to address this challenge by providing a focal point for scholars from across Grounds to engage
around the collection, curation, and exhibition of material culture. The lab provides a framework for
interdisciplinary conversations among faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates in academic fields, as well as researchers and staff in UVA’s museums and libraries.
Since the early 20th century, the curator has often been understood as the author of an exhibition.
But in recent years the field of museum studies has begun to reimagine both the exhibition format and the role of the curator as more collaborative, dialogic, and open-ended, situating the curator as a mediator and facilitator rather than autonomous author. As prominent curatorial theorist Paul O’Neill argues, rather than “texts waiting to be read”, we can see exhibitions as potential “dialogic spaces of negotiation” among diverse stakeholders: curators, artists and other creators, and the public.
Collaborative Curation Lab is led by Lise Dobrin (Anthropology) and Henry Skerritt (Art
History), who are both interested in studying and innovating methods for curating material and intangible culture, to collaboratively exhibit with Indigenous experts, and to integrate visual, material, and sonic
presentation modes. Beginning in Fall 2025, the lab will bring together scholars from across Grounds
around the creation of two experimental collaborative exhibitions initiated by Skerritt and Dobrin.