Local treasures on display
The new exhibit at the St. Catharines museum is akin to a time capsule that was never buried.
The room at the St. Catharines museum is like a time capsule that was never buried.
There’s a T-shirt, a paint set and a teddy bear on display, along with more than 30 other items that, at first glance, would appear rather unextraordinary.
But each of the mostly everyday items has a significance to the residents who loaned them to the One-Five- Oh! exhibit, on now until next June. And those stories are the city’s living history.
“The whole point of the One-Five-Oh! exhibit is it’s really about the story that’s attached to the object, rather than the object itself,” said museum curator Kathy Powell.
“Because objects are really not that significant on their own. What makes them significant is the attachment of a story to them.”
The museum put out a call out in March asking residents to donate an item that says “this is me” with a 100- to 150-word description about it.
It received about 40 items that vary greatly, including ice skates, corn husk dolls and a dress made
from peach wrappers. Some were objects that represented a family’s history while others were modern items familiar to almost anybody, such as keys and Lego.
“The question we asked was, ‘if you could put one thing in a time capsule that represents you, what would it be and why?’” Powell said.
“People went all over with it and it runs the gamut of all kinds of different things. It’s really about that story, the ‘why’ part of why did someone choose this object to go into the time capsule?”
It’s the first time the museum has launched this particular kind of exhibit and the idea was two-fold.
Powell said it wanted to try and represent what the city looks like now. Who are the people who make up the community and what stories do they have to tell?
It also wanted to create a time capsule that people wouldn’t have to wait generations to see.
“I’m not a big fan of taking something that’s significant historically and burying it in the ground for 100 years, because people don’t ever get to see it and they don’t get to see why it’s so significant,” she said. “It’s a more modern take on that.”
Powell said it’s interesting to see what people chose to loan and thinks it’s a pretty good representation of the community.
She said the museum has really focused in the past few years on sharing the stories that its artifacts tell. Just like art galleries tell stories through art, museums tell the stories of their city’s history through objects.
People who missed the deadline to loan physical objects can still participate in the museum’s online One-Five-Oh! exhibit hosted by History Pin app. Stories and photos can be submitted to the digital collection by Googling St. Catharines Museum exhibits and following the History Pin link.
The museum will have some programs later in the year related to the One-Five- Oh! exhibit that will help people think about their families’ stories. Powell said it will have workshops on how to preserve oral histories and photos and how to do research family histories.