The eye of the realist is inflatable. 
- Michael Benedikt in "Motions after Man Ray" 

We are reminded of the smell of our own putrid, plasticized breath when we struggle with the nozzle of an inflatable object. The air shoots forth from the object's mouth; and the parameters of inflatability remain poetically out of bounds. 

The Inflatable Museum gathers objects, performances and situations that articulate a resignation to instability. The forum developed out of my intrigue for the poetics of simulative objects and environments: it is a poetry that negotiates parameters. As an adjective, the inflatable in Inflatable Museum grants the museum the overt ability to become inflated by its content. 

The museum is a deposit for art. It is also a structure for inflating or increasing, deflating or decreasing art -- both in currency and in circulation. 

The aim of the Inflatable Museum is to explore its own structural parameter when it consists of a virtual exhibiting space, given that, its content has the intrinsic ability to outperform the structure it is housed in, the structure of the Inflatable Museum itself. 

I own an inflatable hen. I purchased it from a street vendor in Toronto. When I bought the orange hen, it was attached to a long stick, plastic white. The hen stood out from the rest of the toys for sale, its layer of greasy road dust solidified my own subjective, artistic resonance placed on the object. The hen appealed to me both in look and because, at the time, it encapsulated my diminished appetite for chicken meat. 

Today, the hen still purports issues of simulation and modified states of nature. In this case, it is a reminder of genetically modified chickens that are cultivated to provide plenty of white breast meat. The orange inflatable acts like a siren; as an object, it speaks poignantly about its sister chickens. The inflatable object - like the hen - is a marriage of old and new technology that distinctly acknowledges the object-hood of art. However, as an inflatable, it is a flexible object that simulates more accurately the living quality of human nature. 

From this progress, a comfort zone with technology is evidenced: the technology enabling simulation that reflects our resignation to instability. On a micro-level, the human breath animates the inflatable object, gives it buoyancy. For me, and those who contribute to the Inflatable Museum, inflatability is that which can both see and emulate the parameter.

Paola Poletto
Curator, The Inflatable Museum
2001, Toronto