Peter Emmett is a freelance curator, writer and interpreter of the meaning of sites, spaces and collections, He has developed a multi-skilled, multi-disciplinary approach to revealing the unique and enchanted quality of places and their stories and the presentation of these in innovative museum installations, temporary exhibitions, public art projects and site-specific interpretations. He was Senior Curator of the Museum of Sydney in 1991-2000.

ABSTRACT

Curating the poetics of space

This paper argues the simple proposition that the special qualities of a site such as art museum or exhibition is not in the art or architecture or caption but in the intimate engagement with the poetics of space. This is the ‘museum medium’: negotiating the relation between things, thoughts and feelings. Collaborations with artists on several projects will be discussed.