The Museum of Broken Things

In her latest exhibition, visual artist and ceramicist Jane McCormick has created “a museum inside a museum”.

Jane’s collection, The Corracanvy Hoard, is a museum of broken things, a lifetime’s collection of things that have meaning to the artist; from her childhood toys and clothes, to the pills and potions of her medical history, and even the detritus of her daily walk up Cromwell’s Road.

The exhibition opens tomorrow (Saturday), July 10, at 3pm at Cavan County Museum, Ballyjamesduff and runs until December 2021.

“Where others may see tatty bric-a-brac destined for the dump, I see a treasure trove of source material,” explains Jane.

Jane lays out her collection as if it has just been discovered many years into the future when the contents are no longer odds and ends, but valued museum artefacts. She sees this process as a form of contemporary Archaeology.

“Making museums is about using things to make meaningful patterns out of the chaos of the world, and many of us, although not professional museum curators, have that same impulse. If you like to lay out your best things on a mantelpiece or a sideboard and then show them off to your friends – or if you use the things that have come down to you from your childhood to try to make sense of your past – then you too have the instincts of a museum maker,” says Jane.

Step inside the Museum of Broken Things at Cavan County Museum from July 10th and experience the magic of The Corracanvy Hoard by Jane McCormick. For more information, email info@cavanmuseum.ie or phone 049-8544070.