This post is cross-listed on the JFKU Museum Studies Blog. This Spring quarter 2017, under the supervision of faculty member Brianna Cutts of the Sibbett Group, the Museum Studies Exhibition Development class was challenged with the task of developing the content and designing a prototype exhibition about water. Initially, when we first learned that our topic was water we were not very excited. Most of us thought it was boring and too general a topic to catch anyone’s attention in an exhibition. Yet, as we began brainstorming we soon realized that while the topic was general, it left both the content development and design open to many possibilities. After a one hour silent group brainstorming session, we began to organize our thoughts, discovering water topic patterns. Several topics overlapped and became larger themes for our prototype exhibition and, as expected, other topics eventually became irrelevant to the direction that we chose to take for the visitor experience. The topic evolved in another class a smaller group of us expanded the ways in which those topics could come to life to tell a story in our prototype exhibition. Many of us had deep personal connections to water; stories that touched us, songs and poems that connected our emotions to water, our fears of drowning and truths about not being able to swim. We tossed around strong, powerful metaphors about water such as “the ripple effect”, “a drop in the bucket” and what would become the most influential quote by the Dalai Lama, “Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects.” We used these metaphors to make connections between local stories about water and personal connections to water as seen in our objects. As a small group, we determined our main themes: tapping into the visitor’s emotions and personal connections to water, its power, its value, its weight. Our goal was for the visitor to leave our space feeling both like they had learned something and like they had experienced something, ideally creating a mesmerizing experience. Poetry and metaphors seemed the perfect vehicle for tapping into visitor’s emotions. In subsequent classes we figured out what we needed to do to achieve our goals of educating our visitor and giving them an experience. We divided into teams in order to conquer this huge task in only 10 weeks. The teams included project managers, the content team and the design team. After much debate about what the kind of experience we wanted our visitors to have and ways we thought might work to execute it, we decided that we wanted our visitors to feel like they were floating on water. We realized that we liked the idea of using some flowy fabric somewhere, somehow in our design, and that we wanted the visitor to experience the movement of water. We eventually determined fabric hanging from the ceiling paired with an oscillating fan gave that floating effect we wanted. Executing this was certainly easier said than done. We would continue to make adjustments to this piece of the puzzle up until minutes before our guests began arriving to our opening event. Such is life in the exhibition world. Our content team understood our vision to tap into visitor’s personal connections to water and tirelessly researched, wrote and developed stories for many weeks to come up with six poems or quotes, local stories that connect to those poems or quotes and an object that symbolizes that connection. As a group we decided that the less content, the better, as we’ve all been to those exhibitions where they have wall to wall content. We wanted to make bold statements about people’s connections to water in as little words as possible. No doubt editing these stories was the most challenging element of developing the content for this exhibition. We also aimed to make the best use of our small space by focusing on overall details and design elements to make our visitors feel like they were floating, despite the brief but inspiring content on the walls. Our exhibition title came to us in the middle of all of this. We were discussing metaphors that we could use for content connection and one of the content team members brought up the term water bound. The term water bound explained exactly what we were trying to bring to light. The duality of water in that it is powerful and can be restraining but can also be the key to holding societies together in survival. The subtitle, taking on water, came to us in another metaphor discussion. It also has a dual meaning in that it can mean taking on water in a way that can sink a boat and taking on water as in taking on the challenge to bring humanities struggles with the power and politics of access to water to the forefront, to fight for water. In terms of overall design, we knew almost immediately that we wanted to make the center of the room a seating space for reflection. A place to take it all in. It was also a happy accident that made the space feel larger than it actually is. We measured the space and created a small scale model (1”=1”) so that we could better imagine the space we were working with. The space has one wall almost entirely covered in windows as well as a few poles and support structures near the entryway. It was important to keep these things in mind when designing and deciding the placement of our six stories and objects and without obstructing our seating and reflection space in the center of the room. In an effort to keep with our vision of bringing people’s personal connections to water to light, we wanted our exhibition to have a handcrafted, artistic feel in order to mimic those personal connections. We also knew that we wanted to use the flowing fabric hanging from the ceiling. The challenge was how to create that floating effect without going overboard in terms of design elements, less is more, and without going over our $300 budget for the entire project. One of the members of our design team suggested some water lights projected on the walls or ceiling to add to the floating effect. The biggest challenge with these water lights was where to place them and how to mount them. In the end it was easier and had more of an effect to centralize the water lights and project them onto one wall. This allowed for more readability of the content and solved the problem of mounting them to the back of our object pedestals and projecting them onto our content panels. In the end, despite all of our challenges and differences of opinions as a group, the final result of our prototype exhibition is something that we are all proud of. It received high praise as “Simple, powerful, and timely.” We could not have done this project without the guidance and expertise of Brianna Cutts as well as the support of the entire Museum Studies program and all of the friends and family who let us borrow materials and objects to make this exhibition a reality. Water Bound: Taking on Water is not open to the public on a regular basis, however, if you’d like to check it out you can email [email protected] to schedule an appointment. Thanks to the Museum Studies Spring 2017 Exhibition Development class for teaming up to put together such a compelling exhibition! Brianna Cutts Ilene Conde Soledad Edmondson Anna Escobedo Leslie Evens Ashley Franks-McGill Mari Lau Roberto Martinez Devin McGrane Bronwen Phillips Stacey Stern Sarah Winer
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ASHLEY FRANKS-MCGILLI will be updating this blog periodically with posts related to history, museums, collections and professional development. ARCHIVES
October 2017
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