catherine widgery

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Lost Sense,1998

Widgery was invited by Howard Collinson, curator of the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to create an exhibition that responded to the vast collection of human artifacts and scientific specimens at the ROM. Lost Sense opened in February 1998 and was such a popular exhibit that its run was extended until October. Each work combines a human artifact and scientific speciman in ways that refer to one of our senses. The act of putting each work in a glass case with study lamps bestowed a legitimacy on the works as if they were indeed actual specimens. The notion of collecting is subtlety challenged as it reveals our hubris and need to claim dominance over the physical world.

Phonograph

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Exhibition view of 'Lost Sense'

Movie Projector and Canadian Goose Wings Skates with Beeswax Feet Gas Mask Ice Skates Phonograph Copper Seive with Hair Deer's Head with Boxing Gloves Flicker Christening Noh Mask, with Wire-Rimmed Glasses and Cockroach Porcelain Dol with Grasshopper Wooden Shoe Last with Deer Antler Radio Phono Bulletshell Lost Sense