Museo Equis

A manifesto on museum possibilities.

Written in a very literary way. A ‘creative’ way.

Writing, the museum. Fully writing the museum.

(I include it in both The Musies, and in ‘literary works’ as part of the manifestos!)

All here:

http://www.museumfutures.org/museoequis/

And the beginning…

{From Museo Equis)

Museo Equis. Not a thing, necessarily, or an edifice, or an architectural entity. Not a physical, fixed space. Rather, a fluid and figurative space. Of imaginings and actions. (Not just one or the other, but both—that’s crucial.) A conceptual (un)reality. Not the name of the museum as such. Although maybe once it exists, the name on the (non)building is also that: Museo Equis—spelled out. An operative concept—always at play. Never graspable, always playful. Always idea(l) even if forever (un)done in non/manifestation.

Museo Equis. Its own manifesto. Its own preamble to the manifesto, I should say. The forever-unfinished manifesto. Performing its own unfolding. Its own Becoming.

Museo Equis—a universe of redefinitions, reconsiderations, revisions. An encyclopedia of projects. A realm of thoughts and writings. A poetic and analytical articulation of new concepts and engagements. Immersed in the journey of perpetual innovation.

Q: What if… What if it actually is a place, a space?

A: Then, it’s a place that insists on re-imagining what has existed; transforming what exists; operating tirelessly to fashion what can be. Simultaneously, Museo Equis is the unapologetic design of what possibly could not be. Futuristic and utopian—yet cherishing the present, and operating in the now and the real.

Q: If it’s not a place, an environment, then…

A: A placeholder, a name, a symbol, for a discursive practice. Immersed in the merging of practices. Curatorial and educational and exhibitional and everything else museums do. Using alphabetical languages, visual imagery, performative actions, social unfoldings, Museo Equis generates a parallel discourse, a rival discourse.

With twelve sections (plus a supplement). Twelve… Commandments? (Not!) Propositions? (No. Too cliché, maybe even too modest?) Declarations? (Too confident. Too final.) Steps? Literally? Of course not—not therapy, this… Then… Then twelve… Winks? Dares? Provocations?

Openings, I’d say. Twelve Overtures—to relaunch and rethink the museum’s form and functions and quiddity.

Q: Would it be fair to say that Museo Equis actually is not? That it can’t exist?

A: Not quite, no. That would not really be fair.

A live organism. Growing. Ever-changing. Going through the cycles of maturation too, the growing pains, of live organisms. And then on to death even, and rebirth. And that cycle!

Museo Equis is a pledge, a jester’s vow. A manifesto-defiance. Au audacious call to action. Call to imaginings. Call to new forms of liberty. A delirious vision. A rave. A promise—and a trickster’s dare.