Is Your Life A Museum?

April 23, 2013

Pickering Museum Village invites you to share your personal artifacts in a live virtual exhibit starting May 1

Pickering Museum Village invites members of the public to become curators and post your favourite thing in a unique online virtual exhibit called “Life Is A Museum”.

Things.  Museums are specialists in things: concrete reminders of past eras, deceased persons, abandoned towns, and nearly-forgotten tales. Things furnish our old barns and houses, rest in our collections, shelves, lie on tables, hang on walls, and nestle inside glass display cases, beckoning to visitors and luring them in a manner that a tour guide or a historical plaque never could. Full of history and effective in triggering a tactile or visual response, things are an indispensible part of re-creating the past.

Pickering Museum Village invites you to take part in an online virtual exhibit, to take a moment and reflect on any item that holds personal importance for you and tells a larger story of the life you live. Then, simply upload a photo and brief description to facebook or Pinterest.  Full details are available at pickering.ca/museum on the exhibitions page.

The “Life Is A Museum” exhibit will be publicly adjudicated, based on the number of “likes”, “shares”, and “repins” the postings receive. The top 10 Ontario entries will be invited to participate in a physical exhibition at the museum village in 2014.

This exhibit concept was created by Melissa Crisafulli, a seasonal staff member at the museum village during the summer of 2013 who responded to a challenge issued for staff to suggest creative ways to use social media to engage the public.  Crisafulli was inspired by a book by Canadian author, Charlotte Gray.  Pickering Museum Village hopes to see the exhibit spread globally with current Facebook followers in other countries contributing, and helping to spread the concept further abroad.  For more information, visit the website or call 905.683.8401.

-30-

As the gateway city to the east GTA, Pickering (population 94,000) is strategically located where Toronto, York and Durham Regions meet.  Pickering is an affluent community that is steeped in history, natural beauty and small town charm with all the amenities and services that a big city has to offer.  The City of Pickering is considered a municipal leader in fiscal management, service delivery, sustainability and the environment; and offers a wealth of sports, leisure and recreation opportunities to its residents.  Pickering has been recognized by Profit magazine as one of the ten best cities in Canada for growth companies and received the 2008 FCM-CH2M Hill Sustainable Community Planning Award.

Media Contact:
Katrina Pyke
Coordinator Museum Operations | Culture & Recreation Department
905.420.4660 ext. 3714 |  1.866.683.2760  |  TTY 905.420.1739
kpyke@pickering.ca