Download A4 | US Letter PDF 1.9Mb

About : The Dominion Dundas eBook has been produced to accompany the exhibition of Canadian cartoonist Seth’s model city at the Dundas Museum & Archives (Dundas, Ontario, Canada). Organized by RENDER (University of Waterloo), Dominion takes Seth’s distinct vision of urban space off the printed page and into the format of an installation infused with the cartoonist’s characteristic air of melancholy and ambiguous nostalgia. This eBook features images of 10 of Seth’s buildings and has been developed as a story collecting tool to accompany the exhibition, encouraging museum visitors to reflect on their own town’s history and to share stories of buildings, people and sites of the area.

Published February 2009

Seth is the cartoonist behind the painfully infrequent comic book series Palookville. Currently he is serializing the story Clyde Fans between its covers. This is a task that has gone on for a decade now and will likely continue for several more years. His books include It’s A Good Life I You Don’t Weaken, Wimbledon Green, Bannock, Beans and Black Tea, and the above mentioned Clyde Fans Book One. One volume of his sketchbooks has appeared under the title Vernacular Drawings and another will likely appear within the following few seasons. His books have been translated into 5 languages.

As a book designer he has worked on a variety of projects including the recent Penguin reprinting of The Portable Dorothy Parker. He is the designer of the 25 volume series The Complete Peanuts and the upcoming two volume series on Canadian master cartoonist Doug Wright. As an illustrator/hack he has produced commercial works for almost all of the major Canadian and American magazines. His work has appeared inside and on the cover of the New Yorker. Last year he serialized the story George Sprott (1894-1975) in the New York Times for 25 weeks and will appear in an expanded form as a book in the spring of 2009.

Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario with his wife and three cats and appears to rarely leave the basement.

For more information about RENDER and the Dundas Museum visit:
www.render.uwaterloo.ca
www.dundasmuseum.ca

Diffusion Residency with Proboscis, July 2008
Lisa Hunter
Collections Manager, Dundas Museum and Archives
Dundas, Ontario, Canada.

In my curatorial work with the Dundas Museum and Archives, I work with a local history collection, within the environment of a supportive local community, to produce exhibitions and related programming.  At the heart of my curatorial approach is the concept of storytelling, and most of my projects have been based on some form of information exchange with members of the community.  The primary goal of my residency with Proboscis was to explore ways in which I could build on the most successful aspects of these projects, and to develop additional and alternative approaches to the exchange and presentation of historical material.  Specifically, I wanted to learn how I might incorporate eBooks and StoryCubes into the work that I do at the museum, and to see how these tools might lead to new programs or projects.

The best approach for me was to begin by “jumping right in” and producing an eBook.  The technical and intellectual process of making my first eBook became a way of thinking through how I might use the eBooks (and StoryCubes) at the Dundas Museum.  Additionally, having the opportunity to speak at length with Giles, and other members of Proboscis, about the many innovative and creative ways in which the Generator has been used by others, was a very significant aspect of this residency.  Being in the studio, and being able to share ideas and to have an open exchange, was invaluable.  Further, having the opportunity to put some distance between myself and the museum allowed me to see things a bit more objectively, which is often difficult to do when you are in the thick of the day to day work.

I think the greatest benefit of this residency was that it resulted in a definite shift in my thinking about how a museum can interact with, and respond to, the community it serves.  My approach has always been to encourage dialogue between the museum and the public, but the tools for doing so in an informal yet elegant way have been missing.  Consequently, those efforts to facilitate exchange have been sporadic.  Those of us who work in smaller museums can often feel very limited in our ability to disseminate ideas, partly because of a longstanding tradition of thematically narrow, expensive and poorly distributed publishing ventures.  The Generator, conversely, allows for spontaneous, experimental, low cost initiatives that can be distributed more widely than was ever possible.  I think that our future success as a museum will depend on our ability to continue and deepen an ongoing exchange with our local community, and that the eBooks and StoryCubes are excellent tools for us in this regard.

Although the actual residency was for a one week period, I feel that my work with it is just beginning.  Not only have I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how past projects might have been enhanced or done differently with the utilization of the Generator tools, but I have also been developing a number of future initiatives, in consultation with other members of the museum staff.  While it seems that the eBooks and StoryCubes will need some time to become an automatic part of our curatorial “toolbox,” (i.e. to become a part of our organizational culture), there is a lot of enthusiasm and interest within the organization at this time.  There are currently two eBooks under development, and a plan in place to create a StoryCube set for a senior citizens’ education program in the coming weeks. Other uses are also being considered for future projects.

The residency with Proboscis was an extremely useful, thought-provoking, energizing experience, and I feel very privileged to have been invited to take part.  The new insights I gained are being shared with my colleagues at the museum, and I am hopeful that it will be the basis for a new, creative approach that will permeate our organization.  Working with Proboscis has been very inspiring, and has given me a fresh enthusiasm for pursing my curatorial goals.

The eBooks

Button Doll
Despair
Forget Me Not

Download A4 | US Letter PDF 1.4Mb

About : This eBook is one component of the Community Story Telling Project of the Dundas Museum and Archives, a series of initiatives which offer opportunities for sharing memories, ideas and stories. The eBook was developed by Lisa Hunter during a residency with Proboscis in July/August 2008, and focuses on a unique and popular object in the collection of the Dundas Museum and Archives, the Button Doll. This unusual object was created between 1929 and 1932 by Emma Lewis of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and was donated to the museum in 1964. This eBook invites museum visitors to look carefully at the doll, and share their reflections and observations about it.  A series of eBooks focusing on a variety of objects in the collection of the museum will be produced using this format. 

Published August 2008

Lisa Hunter is Collections Manager at the Dundas Museum and Archives, a community history museum in Dundas, Ontario, Canada.  In addition to caring for a large social history collection, she develops exhibitions and related community outreach projects.  She has worked in a variety of roles in museums and galleries across Canada, and holds a Master of Museum Studies from the University of Toronto.