Collaborated Exhibition: The Interaction And Negotiation Between Collective Memory And Individual Memory

Different from traditional achievement exhibition,the Time Museum,a touring exhibition hosted by the People's Daily New Media Center,starts with practices of ordinary daily life other than grand narrative perspective,eliminating the boundary between “ spectacle ” and “ performance ”,where the visitors have highly participated.Therefore,in this case,the individual memory,which is often forgotten in traditional collective memory study,shows up,and the interaction between collective memory and individual memory can be revealed.The theoretical frameworks of this essay can be mainly concluded as collective memory theory and spectacle/performance paradigm.The former emphasizes the current existence of memory,while the later focuses on the participation and complexity of the involved individual.The writer has participated in the organization and operation of the Time Museum as an intern to gather empirical materials,including live records,live messages and so on.Apart from the fieldwork,the measure of depth interview is also taken for both the organizer and visitors.All these empirical materials then have been deeply analyzed base on the method of text analysis.The study finds that the Time Museum,which is based on practices in daily life and invitations of physical practices,has naturally reduced the cost and threshold ofthe visitors and awaken the individual memories.Afterwards,via the coding of memorial symbols and the reconstruction of the time and space,the pre-set memorial narrative framework has been hidden in the exhibition,and therefore,individual memory and collective memory have been linked.Facing the social framework of memory,visitors have neither fully accepted nor strongly resisted,but chosen to negotiate with the organizer for the differences in memories and feelings between the individual and the group.In this process,through a series of behaviors in spectacle and performance,individuals have played multiple rules,including receivers,producers and communicators in the exhibition.As an irreplaceable type of media,the visitors have broken the restriction of time and space in the touring,and contributed differentiated media content to the memory framework.In other words,individual memory is neither unconditionally incorporated,nor always in a state of confrontation and opposition with collective memory,but in an attitude of complex negotiation.