Objects, Constituents & Roles

We often think of museum collections as Artworks created by Artists.

But museum collections go beyond "artworks" and include a diverse range of historical documents, photographs, textiles, tools, cultural items and more.

This broader category is collectively referred to as Objects.

When talking about Objects rather than just Artworks, we also need an expanded concept beyond Artists.

Constituent refers to any entity with a relationship to an Object, such as an artist, organization, or company.

Constituents are related to Objects by Roles. Objects may have many constituents with various roles...

…and a single constituent may play many roles.

These relationships form a graph similar to social graphs used in social networking sites.

In these paintings associated with Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, only one painting was actually painted by Rembrandt.

Artwork images from Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Roles are essential to clarifying the relationship between Objects and Constituents.

Objects don’t always have a related constituent. Often, the maker is unknown.

In these cases, an Object’s Culture may provide useful context.

Culture and Constituents can be modelled as separate metadata attributes of Objects.

Or, cultures could be thought of as constituents with the role of “Culture”. (Brooklyn Museum currently uses this approach.)

Regardless of the content model and terminology we use internally, we must consider what makes sense for the majority of our visitors.

Most museum websites simply refer to “Artists” and “Artworks”, regardless of the role of the constituent.

However, care should be taken to clarify roles whenever possible.