These are our ideas. Pick them apart/recombine them/ pick & choose/ use & abuse/ do with them as you will. If things don't make sense, we will be happy to give a more thorough explanation in class. My transcription is a bit stream of consciousness, but hopefully you will get the gist.

Idea 1:

OBJECT EXCHANGE/ NARRATIVE EXCHANGE

We ask visitors to enter Pendleton house through stairway by the Porcelain gallery. Before they enter, they are invited to use the porcelain gallery space to draw on a four by six card something from their home that is meaningful for them and write a few sentences about why the item has value to them.

"The objects in this house once had meaning for Mr Pendleton. We invite you to think about what is meaningful in your home and pick an object that holds personal significance to you, that conveys something about your identity or your character, or something that represents your history."

This card is their token for connecting with the collection of objects in that it provides a recurring and tactile reminder that objects on display were once of similar functionality and sentimentality. We invite visitors to walk through Pendleton Gallery with their sketches/stories and engage with the objects on display. They navigate eventually to the second floor where they are presented with hanging photographs of objects from the collection. On the back of each photograph are a few sentences relating the history of the objects themselves, much like the sentences they wrote of their own objects in the Porcelain gallery. Each visitor then exchanges his or her drawing/story for one that hangs in the hallway (exchange can be either [visitor <~~> museum] or [visitor <~~> visitor]).

We are hoping to regulate the entrance to and circulation in Pendleton House, restricting entrance to the Porcelain Gallery and exit to the second floor of Pendleton House (blocking off the glass door by the Rodin sculpture). This structures the sequentiality of the experience: visitors are first invited to make their household tokens (the 4x6 cards) with materials in the porcelain room and then hold on to these cards as they move through Pendleton as a means of enlivening the space and making a connection to visitor's lived experiences. Through the process of exchange, we hope to amplify the social experience of the house and create moments of connectivity over the objects that are important in people's lives, both today and centuries ago.

Idea 2:

YOU"RE INVITED

Students from our class bring in a kitchen/dining/dining room object that is meaningful to us. These objects are placed in the Pendleton dining room. We're looking to bring contemporary objects and their modern functionality in dialogue with the 18th and 19th century objects, enlivening the space and the objects themselves.

Idea 3:

WHO WOULD YOU RATHER....

We pose a question in each room pertaining to the theme and contents of the room and invite visitors to supply written answers to be shared. Each room would have a notebook/guestbook/ 'little black book'/ etc.

The questions:

Who would you like to play poker with? -- Game Room

Who would you like to invite to dinner? -- Dining room

Who would you like to have tea with?

Who would you like to have over to a slumber party? -- Bedroom

Who would you like to have as a study buddy? -- Study

...and so on.

We pose visitors with these questions and invite them to record their responses to be shared with others in each room. We could limit the questions to people in a certain time period (pertaining to Pendleton) or leave it open.

The hope is to induce a way of seeing the rooms as inhabitable space, hopefully activating the space by encouraging people to imaging how they might use the room. We anticipate amusing answers and hopefully some fun justifications.

Idea 4:

That is all.