Your Jewish Museum – Crowd Sourcing an Exhibition

by Lauren Hart, MA Student at King’s College London

On Sunday 30 November 2014, I was presented with shards of glass that had been lovingly reassembled and placed within a blue plastic mould. This was the beginning of my internship on the King’s College London Cultural Institute’s exhibition, Your Jewish Museum: Love, an exciting collaboration between the Jewish Museum London and the Theology and Religious Study department at King’s College London.

The item in question was a glass broken during a Jewish wedding ceremony, following which a family friend had carefully collected the remnants, placed them in a plastic cast, and gifted it to the newlyweds on return from their honeymoon.

This thoughtful present is now a symbol, not only of the love the couple felt for each other on their wedding day, but also the love they continue to share, and one of my favourite objects that has been loaned to the exhibition.

After all the ‘crowd-sourced’ items had been accepted, a curatorial board decided on which community pieces and museum-held articles sat well together. It soon became clear that the variety of pieces together create a rich and varied exhibition that demands the viewer’s engagement.

The show is made up of sculpture, art, film, and personal objects of devotion. Hopefully, this will highlight the power of community curated exhibitions to open a two way dialogue between the object of love and the audience.

This is the first in a series of three exhibitions which will run throughout 2015. The first runs from January to April, the second (Journeys) from May to August, and the final exhibition from September to January.

I look forward to seeing you there!