Critical-Making-Syllabus

Spring 2024 Edition @ UCF

This project is maintained by AMSUCF

Making Exercise Eight: Curation

For our first exploration of intentional scholarly platforms for making, we’ll be working with Omeka. Use the trial account and think small - this is an opportunity to understand what a metadata-driven, archive-friendly platform can enable, but you don’t need to build it to scale. Omeka is very similar to WordPress in its interface, but in addition to the documentation provided in the class demo, there are several tutorials and you might find this overview of Omeka exhibits helpful for imagining the platform’s full potential.

The Curation Prompt

This week’s emphasis is on documentation and connections: you can build your exhibit from a combination of objects that you’ve made (both in class and outside of it), as well as objects that have inspired you. Keep in mind Drucker’s concept of “data trails” and combine the options in Omeka for items, pages, collections, and exhibitions to tell a story. Your Omeka site should include prototypes and experimentation that includes the following:

As with our other exercises, make sure to include both a link to the Omeka prototype and your process reflection with screenshots, drawing on the connections to our readings and considering the limitations and affordances of the platform.

Walkthrough and Resources

Remember, this is an opportunity for reflection and exploration: you don’t have access to the full capacities of Omeka through the free trial, and you don’t need to make or find a lot of new material. This is an opportunity to curate, connect, and reflect on what you’ve already collected. I thus recommend using the following foundational walkthroughs to supplement our video:

This reviews everything you need for this stage. However, if you want to know more about Omeka, here’s a few additional resources and examples: