Cabinets of curiosity are collections — 3-D scrapbooks, popular since the 16th century. The scholar Molly Duggins, in from Australia, and I visited the exhibit Rooms of Wonder at the Grolier Club in NYC.
Cabinets of Wonder exhibit at the Grolier Club
The exhibit gathers catalogs of these antecedents of both museums and scrapbooks. Molly’s own work connects cabinets of curiosity and an Australian colonialist scrapbook/album, in her “Arranging the Antipodes: The Archer Family Album as
- Mechanical dragon exercise machine
Metaphorical Cabinet”
One delightful page from the exhibit shows an ancient exercise machine. Wouldn’t you rather work out on a mechanical dragon?
Scrapbook History 