The Anxiety of Juxtaposition
What is a curator’s responsibility when taking an item out of context and placing it alongside something else?
One of my favorite interviews that I did this season for my podcast for Flipboard was with Meg Tarquinio, formerly the Head of Curation Strategy for Spotify. Meg is a very smart person, and so many of the things she said about curation and the role of human taste in a tech-driven world felt worthy of their own essays. Meg’s ideas deserve to be shouted from the peak of Mt. Curation. This is my attempt to expand on just one of them.
Early on in our interview, Meg talked about “the anxiety of juxtaposition.” Not only do these words sound cool in a sentence, but also they explain something I’ve thought about but never articulated.
Meg defined the anxiety of juxtaposition as:
The responsibility that comes with taking music and art out of its original or intended context and putting it in conversation with the art of others.
For me, this translates to flow. When I’m curating content, I need to feel like one item transitions well to another. I have to have a rationale for why the item is included in the first place and for where it falls within the collection. I need to feel like the thing not only fits alongside what bookends it, but also that each piece does its job of moving you through the experience.
This also means having a framework for how I start and end a collection. I usually begin with something attention-grabbing, perhaps because it’s timely or powerful or so-good-I-need-you-to-be-sure-to-see-it-before-your-attention-flits-elsewhere. Start with a hook.
Then, if I’ve done my job of taking you on a journey, by the end I’m ready to leave you with a sendoff. It might be something fun, like incredible family hikes that happen to end at breweries, or related to the cultural zeitgeist, like a list of every episode of “Atlanta,” ranked, just in time for the show’s finale. On a playlist, it could be a song that puts a spell on you. End with a feeling.
All that said, when I hear Meg referring to putting pieces “in conversation with the art of others,” it reminds me to lift my head up and ask bigger questions as part of my process:
- What job am I here to do as a curator?
At Flipboard, we like to say we inform and inspire the world. Do my selections live up to this goal? - What story are the pieces as a whole trying to tell?
I want readers to emerge feeling better prepared for their work, life and play. Did the collection achieve that? - What are my obligations to the original works when I create a new whole?
I believe in the importance of linking back to and crediting original sources. I think attribution matters for the creator’s and curator’s sakes. - What am I leaving out and why?
This one is about making sure I’ve done the research and that I understand which voices I am choosing not to include and for what reasons. - How do I account for those missing pieces in my new creation?
A collection without context is just aggregation. Real, thoughtful curation necessitates a voice that sets the stage and offers meaning as someone traverses the experience.
In the end, Meg’s pithy idea underscored, for me, that a curator’s responsibility is about so much more than flow.
It’s the narrative of the whole and each individual piece inside of it.
It’s giving that narrative a place and a space — be it via captions, comments or a storytelling layer.
It’s about linking to sources and being generous with attribution.
It’s respecting and honoring how an item traveled to this point and how it came to be a part of something new.
What do you think? What does “the anxiety of juxtaposition” mean to you? Would love to hear from you in the comments below.
