Vanilla Exhibitions

Sometimes it seems like the world wants us to make vanilla exhibitions.

It seems to tell us to make our projects …

• Unoriginal (“It’s less risky to copy the successes of others.”)

• Overstuffed (“The collection will just sit in storage otherwise.”)

• Long-winded (“Critics might slight us for leaving something out.”)

• Tech for tech’s sake (“We’ll look old and irrelevant if we don’t, even if we have better ideas.”)

• Generic (“Every project has to make every visitor happy.”)

But … you know what the funny thing is? 

As soon as we give in, and make our new exhibitions all those things — unoriginal, overstuffed, long-winded, tech for tech’s sake, generic — guess what happens?

The world doesn’t like them.

Here’s the thing:
Sometimes it seems like the world is telling us to make vanilla exhibitions.

But that’s just what every creative project feels like. It’s an illusion. Carry on.

Because no matter what it seems to say — the world doesn’t like vanilla exhibitions at all.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Sans serif. [saanz-sair-uff] Originally French. A typeface “without serifs.” A serif is a small line or curve attached to a letter, like on either side of the base of a capital "T". A “sans serif” typeface like Helvetica doesn’t have them. A “serif” typeface like Times New Roman does.