What's exciting and
interesting about the Canter
is that it has an
origin story that's
really clear and precise
and interesting, where
the pivot point is the tragic
death of young Leland Stanford.
His mother's reaction to that
is, I've lost my only child.
The children of California
will be my children
and I will build
something to sustain them
in the spirit of Leland, Jr.
himself, who was this collector
and had a great passion
for archeology, art,
and natural history.
My name is Mark Dion
and I'm a Visual Artist.
There's always been
a dedicated space
here since the beginning
to the Stanford family.
This collection has been
updated several times.
So this is the
most recent update,
in which they've
invited an artist
to take on the question of how
we should show this material.
The way we're going
to display them
is a way that we'll
give them a new breath
and a new kind of life and
reflect on that history.
But also, put it in a sort
of interesting context
about the history and impulse
of collecting in general.
There's a very rich
culture of mourning.
Really, from the 1860's
to the 1890's, there's
almost a kind of celebration
of death, in a sense.
And people are, of
course, experiencing death
tremendously through
the Civil War;
the death of Lincoln,
which becomes
a kind of national tragedy;
through the invention
of embalming and the elaborate
funeral rituals that happen.
So I wanted to create
something that really
use the kind of apparatus
of mourning in a sense,
so creating this giant
mourning cabinet.
A lot of the objects that were
objects that were in Leland,
Jr.'s personal museum.
And Leland was a typical
kind of kid collector.
He collected things
that inspired him,
things that were odd.
And, in some way, he's very
much a kind of 19th century boy,
right.
He is collecting artifacts
from battles, that
are from the Napoleonic War.
He's collecting curious
things like nails
that have merged together
under intense heat.
He's shooting and
stuffing birds.
The ranch hands who
are working here
are finding objects from
the original inhabitants
of this land and bringing those
to him, mortars and pestles.
Of course, he's entirely
connected to the kind
of romantic traditions, the
things that he's reading.
So he's collecting knights
in shining armor and swords.
So I mean, what you might
imagine a 14-year-old boy would
collect.
But he's not just
any 14-year-old boy,
he's the 14-year-old boy
who has access to resources
that are unimaginable.
I wanted very much to
bring back the spirit
of the original collection,
which is Leland's museum.
I want to open up the
meaning of objects.
I want to have
surprising juxtapositions
that you might find in
a 14-year-old's museum
or 12-year-olds museum.
I want to bring things
together that probably
hadn't been together before.
And to, in some way, put the
viewer in the driver's seat,
in terms of making Leland.
For more, please visit
us at stanford.edu.
