Explain the object’s relationship to the category under which it is placed in the mourning cabinet

One page double-spaced, 1” margins, spell and grammar checked. This is a response paper. The

paper will be based on your educated but subjective response to one object in Mark Dion’s

exhibition The Melancholy Museum at the Cantor Museum at Stanford University. If you are

unable to visit the Cantor on 2/6 with the class, or on your own, then study the website

information:

https://news.stanford.edu/2019/09/17/compelling-origin-story-stanford-museum-universitysilicon-

valley/

and

https://museum.stanford.edu/exhibitions/melancholy…

dackerman-essay

After looking over this information, take a close look at one part of the Dion exhibition, the

Mourning Cabinet, at: http://cantorcollection.stanford.edu/index-tree/tree/287. Pick one of the

objects in the Mourning Cabinet and, after studying it:

1) Describe your chosen object. Be sure to include your observations of it, as well as relevant

information about it included in the exhibition material.

2) Explain the object’s relationship to the category under which it is placed in the mourning

cabinet (earth, air, underworld, water, or fire) and its relationship to the other objects therein.

3) Explore the object’s relationship to the exhibition theme and title (The Melancholy Museum).

What does it tell us about melancholy? About Leland Stanford? The period? The museum?

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