At every turn, visitors are urged to think about how museums and preservation function. Scrawled on one wall is a manifesto of sorts that begins, “Objects previously held inside museums and galleries and archives of death have been liberated!” Below, a glass-topped display case that would hold small pieces in a gallery has been smashed, and, among the shards, little placards indicate where objects might have once rested. The work comes from the Collaborative Fragment Library, which offers a framework for thinking about artifacts that isn’t reliant on museums or the fetishizing of cultural heritage. Artist Fargo Nissim Tbakhi and exhibit curator Mojdeh Rezaeipour have collected pottery fragments (93 of them, as the show’s title suggests) that were found in the Southwest Asian and North African regions and originally held in religious institutions before being deaccessioned. The artists have re-imagined the pasts of these remnants, some of which have been re-homed into sand-filled vitrines along with notebooks containing some “Possible Histories.” The journals can be plucked from the sand and written in, excavating them afresh and unearthing new meanings.Elsewhere in the space, visitors are invited to engage with the work more intimately than a standard museum setting. Around the room are metal platters and bowls of magnetic poetry that can be rearranged, serving as a conversation that is constantly in flux. A textile wall hanging by Dima Srouji titled “Encased in Remnants” features archival photos printed onto gauze, a material that is thought to have originated in Gaza that doubles as both a disposable medical supply as well as a cultural artifact. Visitors can take a piece of gauze from a nearby bowl, a way of carrying a piece of healing remembrance beyond the confines of the gallery. “To Hold and Be Held” by Jackie Milad is an enormous collage that doubles as a floor mat or playscape. The artist has visited collections that house Shabti dolls, or figurines buried with the dead to accompany them to the afterlife in ancient Egypt, and drawn them. These drawings are pasted together with photos of hands holding other sculptural objects and other colorful artworks. Thrillingly, the carpet can be walked over and touched, and the Shabti doll figures that pepper the collage can be picked up (so long as they’re reattached to their Velcro pedestals).

Tsedaye Makonnen’s light-up sculpture is carved with symbols from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that come in endless permutations—many that are designed for specific regions or people, though they are more widely recognized across the African diaspora. The fragments cut from the metal are incorporated into the artist’s textile works, and the wall text includes an encouragement to research the list of people who were with the artist while she worked or who provided inspiration. Such a glimpse at an artist’s process and inspiration is somewhat rare, and it situates the work and gallery as a starting point for further thought and exploration. Uncommon credit is also given for video works around the room, in which the magnet poems are used to show snippets of the conversations that went into the project: Some of the participants are artists who created the exhibit’s works and some are conversation partners, but the contributions of all are given credence. Around the room, books that have informed the exhibit are available to peruse.

The exhibit starts in the beaux arts-style atrium of the Flagg Building, where some collaged wall hangings can be spotted through the limestone columns. Seeing these assemblages before entering the enclosed gallery room, they seem a bit inscrutable, but their components come from photos of objects inside, like covers of books and arrangements of magnetic poetry on platters. Looking at them again on exiting the gallery, they come full circle. Above these is a set of plaster casts, which were created from original panels of the Parthenon Frieze in the British Museum’s collection, a permanent fixture of the Flagg Building’s interior architecture and a contrasting reminder of typical museum conventions.

93 Fragments runs through Feb. 15 at GW’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. Thursday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m.