Museum of the Patriotic War of 1812: The Curatorial Account

After years of searching for a site to build a historical museum of the Patriotic War of 1812, lacking funds and bureaucratic inflexibility rendered the project impossible.[1]

In the museum, we’re privileged to what we might consider a more postmodern commemoration of the War. No longer do we have the massive monuments with their imposing metanarrative account of the War. Here we’re confronted with fragmented narrative. We’re given artifacts, bits and pieces of the story of the War, and are presented with our own task of making sense of the narrative through these touchstones. In many cases, the museum visitor is able look at primary objects of the War, sabers, uniforms, etc., and has the opportunity to have a relatively unmediated confrontation with the War. That is, they can look straight at items that evoke the War without having to see the objects through another person’s interpretation. Of course, we should understand that there is still a sort of authorship in the curation of the exhibits, but it’s not the sort of towering, singular meaning/representation with which we’re accustomed in the other tour stops.