Does Spirl Jetty make the Great Salt Lake a museum?

In class we established that museums were a way to demonstrate knowledge through objects; to display what we know or believe is true about the world, so museums are places of learning. Of course, objects have no inherent meaning; they are given meaning, and value, by people. Since objects are given value and meaning by people, it creates the potential for any odd collection of items to be considered a ‘museum’. But with museums, selection is the key factor in deciding what is, and what is not, considered a museum, people have to select, choose, carefully the items to be displayed in a museum. The value of the museum objects must be high, both in intrinsic value and capital. Just a high value is not enough, the object must go along with the concept the curator is trying to convey, and to have been carefully selected to be a part of the collection. Which is why national parks, though made up of objects that we consider valuable and wish to preserve, and they can also convey a meaning or concept, and the site itself was chosen, the objects within the park were not carefully selected by people for the individual value and knowledge they convey. The value of national parks is more ‘greater than the sum of its parts’ then the value of its individual parts being the ideal. So I’d say no, Spiral Jetty does not make the Great Salt Lake a museum, because it is not an object selected by someone, given value, and put into a collection to convey knowledge or an idea. Museums are also there to preserve objects of significance, and by preserving Spiral Jetty, it might go against the knowledge that the artist was trying to convey with his work. So like a national park, Spiral Jetty should not be considered a museum, because it was not selected, and preservation sort of goes against the artwork’s convey of knowledge.