Storytelling Exhibitions: Identity, Truth and Wonder 9781350105966, 9781350105935

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Dedicated to Vanessa

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Foreword

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Foreword Professor Graeme Brooker, Head of Interior Design, Royal College of Art It is a privilege to be invited to provide the foreword to this book, and to be given the opportunity to introduce its distinctive content. It is suffused with the compelling enthusiasm of its author and the extensive knowledge that comes with years of experience in their field. It is a timely and comprehensive publication, replete with ideas and exemplary work. It is timely because it unpacks and explores many of the extraordinary challenges that the 21st century needs to address. Issues such as climate change and social justice are critical to all aspects of design thinking. This dynamic book shows how exhibition design can address these complex and challenging matters. As the author so deftly explains, objects represent a multiplicity of both current and historic lives and therefore stories. Sometimes, these narratives change and are no longer acceptable. As we saw at the start of the new decade, in Bristol, UK, and in the US, objects such as statues, erected to relay very particular narratives, can have a new story enacted very directly upon them. This book is primarily about stories. It explores the narratives of things, people and places. Storytelling is as old as the world and its inhabitants; everything contains stories. The seat you are sitting in whilst reading this book, the environment in which you are enclosed, the building, the city, the country in which you are situated. All are replete with narratives, histories and accounts of their use, their places in the world. In heritage studies, the practice of constructing narratives, and the regulation of these values, is known as the making of the authorised heritage discourse. It is a dialogue that is reliant on the claims of experts, stakeholders and others, all of whom have assembled the cultures and the legacies of various entities. Of course, this is a set of values and narratives that are bound up with power and knowledge, legitimized by different communities, societies and institutions. I raise the importance of this term because, in my view, it is aligned with the principal themes of this book. That is that exhibitions, and their design, are the processes of establishing the discourses and hence the values of the elements being displayed and the environments within which they are placed. Therefore, stories, and by association exhibitions, are, and always should be, understood as fluid entities. They are dynamic things that change meaning throughout time, and can be translated in multiple ways.

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As the author so eloquently points out, the activation of these stories is primarily the job of the exhibition designer. Along with a curator, they are specialists in translation and interpretation, and tasked with relaying these narratives to particular audiences. Upon first reading, my initial reaction to this book was how the author had so distinctly relayed the idea that exhibition design is a vital instrument for guiding the reader, in very knowledgeable and well-written manner, through the challenges of our current times. It is a text that encapsulates how fundamental the exhibition of stories through objects and environments has become to the understanding of our own lives and cultures. If museums and galleries are the storehouses of cultures, then the display of their contents is like the mirror of societies, reflecting the current concerns, challenges and ambitions of generations. I hope that you enjoy reading this book as much as I have done. But, maybe more importantly, its role is really to ensure that the next object, room, building and city that you experience, its display and the way that it is presented, should ensure that you reflect upon what are its stories, in what manner are they being relayed to you, and how are you entering into a dialogue with them.

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Introduction

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Introduction This book describes the role and practice of modern ‘spatial storytellers’. It describes how curators, interpretive planners, designers, artists, scientists, fabricators and others combine to tell powerful stories. It argues that wonder is integral to the exhibition experience, and that exhibitions help us to ponder the role of humans in the world at a time of deep concern about the environment. They allow us to admire human achievement, but also to ask questions of human behaviour in the past and present. They also enable us to interrogate evidence, and to ask, ‘what is true?’. The stature of museums is significant. Museums are generally trusted. They are considered the most trustworthy source of information in America, rated higher than local papers, non-profits, researchers, the US government, or academic researchers. Museums are considered a more reliable source of historical information than books, teachers or even personal accounts by relatives.1 The significance of this is not lost when you consider the remarkable divisions in politics and the polarization of opinion in recent years. It means that exhibitions and museums have a unique role in public life and have the opportunity to effectively reach audiences and to share stories that have credibility. There is also continued evidence to show that people do have profound experiences in museums.2 Exhibition experiences are formative, and visitors can trace back career choices to childhood museum visits. In the UK, museums are credited with helping to create community cohesion and improved mental health.3

0.1 A statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in front of an installation of bricks marked with the names of people he owned as slaves. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), 2016

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The future of exhibitions

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The future of exhibitions

This rosy picture of museums today has a flip side, however. Many exhibition makers and museum staff are not happy with the world as it has become, and find themselves increasingly in opposition to corporations, governments, vested interests and museum leadership. Museums also face considerable external criticism. Difficult though it is to speak so generally about such a diverse sector, we see that initiatives to combat climate change, increase bio-diversity, address hostility to immigration, increase accessibility and decolonisation are top of the agenda at museum conferences. As MoMA curator Paola Antonelli said recently, ‘The future is terrifying.’ No longer willing to sit back and observe the harm being caused in society, exhibition makers have embraced activism with exhibitions that powerfully address fundamental debates. Antonelli encapsulated the mood when she stated that the future ‘just needs to be made better. Rather than angst, I wished we used anger.’ She went on to say, ‘Greta is angry at the older generation, and that’s fine,’ referring to Swedish environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg. ‘I think that sense of action is what is needed.’4 So why are museums addressing difficult subjects debated in the public realm? Following a moment’s consideration, it is easy to understand how many of these issues erode the very basis of museums. Natural history museums were set up to record the Earth’s species. It is with horror that they see destruction of the habitats that gave birth to early collections. The concept of public exhibitions largely developed in the 19th century, a world of greater biodiversity and richness. Comparative studies now show unprecedented levels of extinctions and destruction of habitat. Prof Andy Purvis, a Research Leader at the Natural History Museum in London issued a call to action: ‘All the warning lights are flashing: hottest years on record, coral bleaching, rising sea levels, loss of tropical forests, wild populations declining, and a million species threatened with extinction. We would be failing in our duty to society if we didn’t pass these warnings on.’5 Museums and museum collecting has been foundational to our understanding of the planet’s species. Basic scientific terms such as evolution, biodiversity and sustainability are uniquely interpreted and evidenced in museums. The lack of awareness and disregard surrounding them is an affront to the principles of science that have been championed in museums since they began. Similarly, museums are uniquely linked to cultures abroad. Their remit, particularly for history and ethnographic museums, is often to bring the stories of foreign cultures to the public. They are alarmed to see these cultures despised by populist politicians. Political nationalism has sparked opposition amongst the mainly liberal, educated staff of museums and a feeling that museums and the values which define many museums are under attack. The Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg in Sweden has activism and change at its heart. Their exhibitions address issues such as human trafficking, the harm caused by missionary activity in Africa during the reign of King Leopold in the Congo in the 1890s, and the power dynamics of the people buying, collecting and stealing artefacts from other countries.6 But there are many other initiatives. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology instigated a programme of hiring refugees and immigrants as guides in defiance of the Trump administration’s public moves to limit migration into the United States,7 while the David Museum at Wellesley College, also in the US, withdrew or obscured from view artwork on their walls that had

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Introduction

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either been created by an immigrant artist or donated by an immigrant donor. Twenty per cent of the collection was finally removed, leaving many walls entirely blank.8

Facing pressure and protest Exhibition makers also face considerable external pressure. Protests at museums are now fairly commonplace, and exhibition makers find themselves the target of sharp criticism. In the eyes of many, museums are tainted by dubious sponsorship, colonizing narratives and collections obtained by dubious means. Their educational offer is compromised by the origins of the wealth that endowed many of the largest collecting institutions. The debate is rarely a nuanced one. In museum conferences around the world, this normally sedate club has become frustrated by the ubiquity of ‘artwashing’ sponsorship, where museums have become the conduit of choice for corporate PR sponsorship intended to polish the reputations of polluters and sellers of harmful opiates. Artists too have taken up this struggle. In 2019, the National Portrait Gallery in London was rocked by the refusal of artist Nan Goldin to display her photographs in the museum. Goldin, herself a former addict, declared she will refuse a prestigious retrospective of her work at Britain’s National Portrait Gallery if it accepts a gift of £1 million from the Sacklers. ‘My message is for all institutions everywhere, which are taking Sackler money,’ said Goldin. ‘They are not going [to be able to] continue to operate “business as usual”. People are pushing back and, if they want to maintain their standing as cultural institutions and educational institutions, they have to listen to the people and they have to do the right thing. They have to make a decision.’9

0.2 Photographer Nan Goldin with protesters at the V&A, calling for the museum to drop the Sackler name and stop accepting the family’s money

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The future of exhibitions

In this book, I aim to highlight the work of exhibition makers, many of whom work in museums, but others who do not. These are the people who, working in teams, make exhibitions that address today’s burning issues. They are not content to sit back. These are the people who, working with the material of exhibitions, enrich our sense of the possible. They move us outside of the normal and give us the freedom to imagine different realities. This book aims to look more widely at the ‘how’ of exhibition storytelling and the exhibition storytellers themselves and highlight exciting areas of practice. How are these teams of exhibition makers constituted? As with film, where the production of stories is no longer centralized in a few locations, the ‘production studios’ of exhibitions are scattered in many places. Most are in museums, but as this book goes on to show, the ability to make exhibitions resides in many places. There are known centres of excellence in major institutions, but there are many specialists who work collaboratively with multiple partners in design firms or individually. As in a film studio, these specialities are brought together through project managers and work collaboratively to bring exhibitions to a wide audience. I aim to show how exhibition makers are addressing important debates about the role of museums. For decades, museums have been under attack because of collections acquired in dubious circumstances and in ways that we now understand to be cruel and unfair. While exhibition makers seek to show how a world can change for good, there are a number of inconvenient truths lurking in museum stores. Although human remains collected over the last century and a half have largely been repatriated, a persistent suspicion hovers over many historic museums that they have acquired by an asymmetry of power objects of vast importance to many cultures and they hold those collections hostage.10

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The chapters of this book As a designer, my focus is on the design of the process that enables new exhibitions, but also to highlight that the specialist practices of exhibition are interdependent. There are no good exhibitions that are brilliantly designed but have poor storytelling or poor curation, or good exhibitions that do not properly address their audiences. Exhibition specialists work together, and the production teams who make exhibitions are necessarily collaborative. I set out the role of non-subject experts, interpretive planners, engagement specialists and interpretive designers in making a better system. How do you make a sustainable future for exhibitions that will enable dialogue and discussion about critical societal issues such as climate change, biodiversity, migration, identity and history? How can the mission of museums, the storehouses of evidence, be relevant to today’s challenges? How can we ensure that all sections of society are represented in these new museums? The following chapters address these issues. Story (1) asks why stories are central to the making of new exhibitions and specialists work together to build

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0.3 Masquerade interactive film made with a cast of 40 volunteers from three community groups. Clay Interactive Ltd, Europe 16001815 galleries, Victoria & Albert Museum, 2016

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complex stories that engage audiences. It asks why storytelling has become a significant mode of making exhibitions. The roles of different exhibition makers are explored. It ends with a discussion about audiences and a conversation about the unique difficulties of discussing ‘calls to action’ in the exhibition space. Authorship (2), the second chapter, asks who can ‘author’ an exhibition idea. It describes how individuals and communities can generate exhibition ideas with examples of how exhibition ideas have emerged. It also discusses co-creation – how exhibition makers seek partnerships outside of museums to make exhibitions and who can have a voice in determining the content of an exhibition. Exhibits (3), the third chapter, asks what the ingredients of an activist exhibition are. How should exhibits be chosen to maximize the effectiveness and how are these ‘ingredients’ changing? It discusses how exhibition makers can maximize their ability to reach audiences through exhibits. Identity (4), the ‘who’ of exhibitions, is a critical part of exhibition making. This chapter takes some examples to show how stories in exhibitions are used to represent communities. It also discusses how some exhibitions involve working with communities to interpret and represent stories. It also gives examples of the impact of expropriated artefacts and discusses current attempts to repatriate critical artefacts. Wonder (5) is about the role of the museum to inspire, involve and bring about action on important societal issues. It talks about the need to create experiences that engage and create the stimulation and fascination to change how the world works, particularly in engaging with climate change.

0.4 Digitally recreated underground caves with handpinted facsimiles of the prehistoric cave paintings. Design by Casson Mann, Lascaux International Centre for Cave Art, 2019

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The future of exhibitions

Truth (6) is about the current war on truth and ways to explore truth in the exhibition environment. It shows how exhibition makers are gathering and displaying evidence and how exhibitions can ask the audience to re-examine their own ideas about what is true and what is fake. This chapter also explores new media and how ‘superpowers’ will change how people and places are portrayed in exhibitions. Virtual (7) is a personal account of an exhibition staged during the Covid-19 pandemic which could only be experienced virtually. This chapter explores some of the benefits of the virtual exhibition and some of the opportunities it offers. It also offers some thoughts about involving and engaging experiences generated through social media and with limited resources. Future (8) takes a brief look at the past in exhibitions and extrapolates a new future for museums using key projects as a guide. It discusses the impact of a rapidly changing climate, destruction of biodiversity, migration and other factors and how they might play a role in the museum of the future.

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A note about the intended scope of this book Many exhibition books are practical handbooks, things you should know and which will endanger, compromise or risk the wellbeing of visitors to exhibitions if you didn’t learn them. There is a powerful incentive to buy books like that for practitioners because there are really are things you should not do in exhibitions, some of which – for designers particularly in terms of the design of circulation – can be embarrassing if wrong. I have highlighted some of those aspects in previous books, Exhibition Design (1st and 2nd Edition). Yet it is also a little tedious to hear only about what you should know and can be punished for not knowing. I wanted to avoid that in this volume and to try to highlight some of the things I learned which are worth knowing or may be useful to look into. Some of the insights are my own, but largely they are the product of conversations with people who make exhibitions that I admire, and who have stimulating views about their own practice and the exhibitions of the future. There are lots of unfinished thoughts here. Not every conversation leads to a firm conclusion; most, I hope, open up new avenues for exploration. The stimulus for much of the discussion is partly a response to wider societal concerns. Running through the book there are some themes which pop up on TV or in newspapers. There is a deepseated concern about the divisions and opposing communities of public knowledge; a dislike of science in particular, and polarization in politics, that even the Covid-19 pandemic has been unable to ameliorate. One group believes one thing, one group believes another. Those groups are aware of each other, but they don’t cross over or interact significantly or meaningfully. For this reason, I have included insights about reception of exhibitions as well as the intentions of the exhibition makers. The exhibition format has limitations as well as opportunities, and it is useful to talk about them. I am much indebted to the interpretive planner and audience researcher, Ben Gammon, for his considerable insights in this area. Of course, no blame attaches to him for any errors in my interpretation of his perceptive comments. Implicit in much of the discussion also is an awareness that facts on their own are insufficient to make an argument or to cross the many divisions. There is a genuine desire for each camp to be blind to the arguments of the other. There is a real sense lurking deep beneath the conversations that exhibitions, like good journalism or documentaries, need to find ways to bring stories to attention that underlie polarized current debate and shed light on our debates. Also implicit in the discussions is the ongoing revolution in approaches to sources of information and storytelling. People communicate differently, rely on different types of information and regard the knowledge that is shown in exhibitions differently from year to year. What we are doing this year won’t be what we are

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Introduction

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doing tomorrow or the year after. There are lots of commonalities, but changes in forms and formats of public dialogue are continuous. You may well be asking, why are these issues being considered in a book that features design, and is written by a designer? For the purposes of this book, I have tried to wrap up design with other aspects of exhibition making practice and to put them together. There are significant skillsets which are in the domain of the exhibition designers and for which they alone are responsible. Yet I believe it is useful to consider the designer’s output in the context of the final output and not to completely separate out design tasks. I have used the term exhibition maker more often and have tended to talk less about the individual specialities within larger teams than the work of the whole. There is an assumption amongst some that design is an activity which is essentially without values; that its role is to make things look attractive and to respond to the task of making something (anything?) more interesting. This is a misperception. Exhibition design is about making experiences that have real value. The content, the design and the interpretation go hand-in-hand. There are specialist skills, but to achieve the overall task design is more than just good presentation. The role is about creating real involvement: provoking, asking questions, engaging audiences in ideas and debates and creating context, or a ‘space’ for the re-evaluations, thoughtfulness and engagements that make exhibitions special. This book deals with a kind of storytelling exhibition, a type of communication, experience, dialogue, discussion that is already happening in many cities and towns. However, not all exhibitions are storytelling exhibitions. There are many exhibitions which do not use this methodology and which rely on other ways of bringing topics, works of art or indeed anything to light, but storytelling is a feature of a large percentage of major exhibition practice and for that reason I believe it deserves the attention I have given it in this book. Storytelling exhibitions are often a conversation with the visiting public, drawing attention to perspectives, hidden truths and little-known areas of knowledge. As such, exhibitions are ‘dynamic,’ speaking to audiences about the things they know and about which they are forming ideas and opinions, and as such can be important to the way we think.

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1

Story

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Dynamic area of practice

Storyteller is a title that has been adopted by a generation of people who make exhibitions: designers, curators, interpretation specialists, museum educators and other museum staff. This chapter aims to show how storytelling is used to make vibrant and exciting exhibitions. It sets out how storytelling harnesses the creative energy of multi-faceted teams to bring stories, ideas, methods, inventions, concepts and new phenomena to greater attention. It also discusses how stories are developed to resonate with audiences and refined to exclude distracting detail. It discusses how use of language in exhibitions can cause misunderstanding and lack of comprehension. As ever, the exhibition and museum scene is diverse and with many strands, but the storytelling idea is an established part of the museum landscape. It is an idea that continues to develop in its sophistication and depth through experience and better understanding of audience response.

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Story

Breaking with convention 2

Why is storytelling in exhibitions important today? The excitement of contemporary practice is generated by the energy and drive of storytellers to chart new territory in rethinking traditional narratives and practices. They take on the essential stories of our day: such as fake news, climate change, marginalization, religion, biodiversity, migration, identity, the data revolution, poverty and political violence. Het Nieuwe Instituut in the Netherlands is an example of an institution willing to use storytelling to highlight new narratives. Once an institution committed to monographic exhibitions dedicated to (usually white and male) architects, they sought instead to tell the story of those who wanted to subvert the systems of ownership. Their exhibition, Architecture of Appropriation, tells the stories of the ‘Krakers’ or squatters who illegally occupied empty housing in Amsterdam in the 1980s. More recently, the Stapferhaus in Lenzburg in Switzerland staged FAKE. The Whole Truth, an exhibition that asks ‘What’s true? What’s a lie?’ Or another exhibition in Lenzburg, Home. An International Experience, which questions the meaning of home in an age where migration is a norm. The excitement of exhibitions is not just the story, but the flair, audacity and courage with which they are told. The staid museum world is full of nay-sayers and critics, but I argue here that many of the risk-takers are setting the pace, not the doubters. Exhibitors such as the Wellcome Collection in London, a venerable old institution, now perhaps holds the title for the edgiest exhibitor in a typically staid arena, bringing questions of identity, sexuality, gender and climate change to the fore. Not only are they leading with content, but also with their ability to curate art installations and to integrate them into thought-provoking environments.

1.1 Director Sergei Eisenstein innovated in the use of storyboards to orchestrate lighting, music and photography to build dramatic tension and has inspired many exhibition designers.

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Why story?

Why story?

It is in that context that we can see the importance of the storytelling method. So what is the storytelling method? Simply put, it is the organization of exhibition content as if told by a storyteller. Taking any subject – it could be space exploration in the 20th century or Persian art of the 8th century – the initial aim is to render the subject as simply as possible as if told like a story. That is what forms the basis of the exhibition organization and structure. In the act of turning exhibitions into stories, something magical happens. The scene is set, the place, the time, the main characters and a situation are described. The story develops, there are twists, turns and finally, an outcome. Good storytelling tells us how a topic should be conveyed. Too much detail and we are lost, too little development of the story and we are bored and unsatisfied. The story that intrigues you and that plays back in your head is the one that shows a good organization of its material and may have surprise, intrigue and food for thought.

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Memorable stories The strengths of this method are many. If the story is memorable, all team members can recall it. The telling of the story becomes a common goal, a kind of overriding purpose that unites. More significantly, almost anyone can be the storyteller. In a large museum exhibition, the storyteller is the usually the curator. But the storyteller does not need to be academically trained, they simply need to know the story. Their standing and the quality of the exhibition depends on it. The facts of the story can be checked later, but at the beginning at least, a narrator’s storytelling ability is paramount. For this reason, exhibitions have the power to truly express the stories of people regardless of who they are. If I am telling a story, and it is my story, and I am reasonably capable of conveying that story, then that story can form the main basis of the exhibition as long as I have the assistance of people who can help in transforming that story into a designed and completed exhibition. The impact of the storytelling approach can be therefore be radical. It can an open up new topics, new ideas and convey stories from every angle. Not just top-down histories, but bottom-up stories which invert, question and interrogate. It is a common misconception that all stories need to be chronological. Most often they are, but sometimes they are told backward (Botticelli Re-imagined, V&A) and they can be playful and use cinematic techniques (the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, Ekaterinburg). Also, people pinball around exhibitions in unexpected ways. The story is therefore rarely experienced in a strict and predetermined sequence.

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Story

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1.2 This superb exhibition has the distinction of being one of the very few ‘reverse chronology’ exhibitions, beginning with Botticelli’s death. Botticelli Reimagined, V&A, UK, 2016

Joint storytelling The small miracle and excitement of this method is that a group of people can go into a room for a day and between them develop a story together. As difficult as it often is to get wide agreement for some topics, the storytelling method is flexible. It accommodates competing ideas and allows narratives to be told alongside each other. That is not to say that there will always be agreement, but project-ending disagreement is rare. The process relies on the skill of a good facilitator, able to draw out commonalities first, later demonstrating how the exhibition format is able to convey competing perspectives. Designers use the chapters of the story to map across the physical space of the galleries, sometimes matching those chapters to individual rooms. Storytelling is also ubiquitous in life as well as museums. Although many argue that storytelling is a basic part of the machinery of the human pysche, if storytelling is not innately a human characteristic, it is general enough to allow remarkable dialogue and understanding across cultures. It is possible, in most circumstances, to work with people from widely differing backgrounds and cultures. It is important to say that no technique will resolve truly flawed exhibition ideas and the need to interrogate an idea thoroughly. Yet, the story format provides a basis for successful formulations of exhibition ideas.

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Why story?

Some stories stick in the mind more than others

Exhibition makers look for stories that are simple and succinct and highly memorable. Did Newton discover gravity when an apple fell on his head? Or did Archimedes leap out of the bath naked shouting Eureka! when he realized that volume could be measured by the displacement of water? We will probably never know the exact truth, but these stories have stuck in the minds of generations of schoolchildren. Interpretive planner Ben Gammon uses in his workshops Made to Stick, a book which describes a set of six rules devised by authors Chip and Dan Heath to describe the best way to devise memorable stories.

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Application of the storytelling approach Perhaps the most dramatic and exciting example of the storytelling museum to emerge in the last decade is the National Museum of African American History and Culture. A new museum discussed and planned for over a century finally opened in 2016 to great acclaim. After six months, 1.2 million people had visited the NMAAHC, making it one of the most visited Smithsonian museums. Years after opening, the NMAAHC remains one of the busiest museums on the Mall in Washington, DC, and one for which demand for tickets often outstrips supply. Until September 2016, the African American experience, although present in the National Museum of American History, remained largely untold. The Museum’s story is one that was developed over nearly a decade by Director Lonnie Bunch III, who guided the project since his appointment in 2005. The responsibility must have been daunting. How do you tell the story of a people and nation over so many years? It’s a task that very little could prepare you for, and required the collaboration of a many historians, curators and other contributors who gave their time freely. Visitors to the NMAAHC continue to pay the most handsome compliment a museum can be paid, by staying for an average of six hours on their visit, a duration which is exceptional. And the critics largely agree with the visitors, as the museum has won awards for its interpretation, design and architecture. Soon after the opening, Bunch described how the story came together. ‘[The core team] would meet daily in a conference room lined with large sheets of yellow paper where we wrote down every idea, every hope and every challenge we had to overcome.’ It is significant that the story came before the team had collected a significant list of artefacts. Artefacts were sought only after the story of the exhibition was determined. ‘We could not finalize the specific interpretations and directions until we obtained collections that carried the stories we felt were important.’ Bunch also had a feel for the kind of displays he required: ‘I also wanted the exhibitions to have a cinematic feel. As someone who revels in the history of film, I needed the visitor to find presentations that were rich with drama, cinematic juxtapositions, with storylines that elicited emotional responses and interconnectivity so that the whole museum experience was a shared journey of discovery, memory and learning.’ 1 But having ideas about the stories of African Americans was simply not enough to anchor the content. Bunch knew that he needed to ground the content in the expertise and knowledge of scholars; he undertook a comprehensive review of the ideas with scholars from universities across the States. The outcome of his discussions with historians, literary scholars, folklorists and political scientists guided the project’s story, taking on significant lessons and new ideas. Bunch learned ‘how we needed to broaden our definition of culture; how central the use of literature would be to give voice to the history.’2

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Story

Developing the story 6

The makers of exhibitions work in teams. They work together to transform ideas, topics and exhibition assets such as objects into an exhibition. Similar to the development of ideas for film production, you need people who understand the story and can develop the story into a given format with drama, surprise and intrigue. Interpretive planners are skilled in working with the people who understand the facts and the story. It is their job to create a workshop environment in which the story emerges. They run this process like a showrunner who works with television writers to create a script and can provide the alchemy that turns the base metal of facts into narrative gold. Interpretive planners are, to some extent, the heroes of this book because it is their contribution that provides the layers of argument, interrogation and narrative energy that drives a good exhibition. More than any other professional, it is the increased professionalization of interpretive planning that raises the standard of exhibitions and can turn an exhibition from a dutiful organization of objects into an expressive medium. No doubt, the skill of interpretive planning will continue to evolve and be increasingly recognized. More often than not, the interpretive planner’s skill is to pare down extraneous material. Interpretive specialist Ben Gammon uses Michelangelo’s description of ‘sculpting, chipping away the excess stone to release the angel inside.’ Most interpretive planners insist on the importance of face-to-face workshops. With the key people in one place and all of their attention on the task in hand, the interpretive planner opens up a space for debate, dialogue and storytelling, with no suggestion being wrong or right and value placed on the contribution of everyone in the room. The framing of the task is critical. Here is a description by professional interpretive planner Kate Hulme. The first thing is that there are lots of ways of telling a story and I start by using examples outside of exhibitions. For example, if you were making a documentary, it would be factual, rigorous and would have a really clear point of view, but it does not have to be just one fact after another. She goes on to say, You can show people how to tell a story really well without being chronological, like some poems. They are not written in a formulaic way, but they tell a story in a way that strengthens the storytelling. It doesn’t feel bewildering for a reader when the poet has a confident approach. You can tell the most important thing first, or set the scene by starting with the most exciting part, and then work back to find out why it happened.

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Developing the story

Are exhibitions experienced in a linear way?

Paul Bowers, interpretive planner, makes the case that even if we plan museums as a linear story, they are rarely experienced in a linear fashion: ‘There is a vast body of research describing exhibitions as “free choice learning environments” – they are experienced as nonlinear, experiential spaces in which social and emotional outcomes are of primary importance.’

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With this in mind, a typical workshop might start with a description of the story. It can start simply with the question, ‘what happened?’ The storyteller or storytellers will start the story and key parts of the story of the exhibition are recorded by the interpretive planner. The story is typically written on a whiteboard or screen, at least somewhere where everyone can see. Whatever form that takes, shorthand notes, or even titles of stories, a process of drawing out the story begins in a free, open and uncensored way. As Kate Hulme points out, in the context of a workshop, it is important to ‘get the whole story out first and work to refine it later.’ Once the story is out of the minds of the storytellers and is written up, the story is ready to begin a process of development. The interpretive planner asks themselves and the group, how will this play with your audience? What will a child think? How would your family react? What aspects of the story can be added to or even subtracted to make the story coherent? The storyteller is encouraged to think about how they would address the story to diverse audiences; what is it that might grip a 50-year-old builder? What might appeal to a 20-year-old marketing assistant? What would appeal to a schoolchild of 12 years old? The response to this is often instructive. Many different aspects of the story are revealed.

Gap analysis and ‘killing your darlings’ The first flurry of activity is nearly always a revelatory moment in this process. But once the first iterations are made, the interpretive planner encourages another look. Here is Kate Hulme again: At first ideally, I do a bit of a gap analysis first in terms of what you’re already doing well, what you haven’t addressed? What are you not delivering that they need?3 The results of concept workshops will often need to be refined until it becomes a really successful concept. The process of refinement also means that you have to lose elements that do not fit. One of my own clients explained to me once, ‘this is the hardest part . . . in every project there was always a pet or cherished idea that we cling on to.’ But if it does not work, you have to be prepared to delete it, or as he said, ‘killing your darlings is a necessary part of the process.’ Refining exhibitions often requires thinning out surplus material. As one commentator says, ‘The instinct of most curators is to pack as much into an exhibition as you possibly can’ – often to the detriment of the visitor experience.

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Expressing the ‘big idea’ 8

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Not every exhibition has to be a ‘big idea’, but for many exhibition developers it’s worth exploring whether your exhibition concept is really worth its place in the world. Does it express anything new, does it simply duplicate similar experiences in other institutions, or is the story explored better in in film or online? Alex Burch at the Natural History Museum in London explains, ‘museums no longer need to be encyclopaedias . . . if you want information, then you can look at Wikipedia . . . what you are trying to do is to create (an experience) that is compelling, surprising and thought-provoking.4 You have to ask yourself, what is your big idea?’ For exhibition developers, the ‘big idea’ is not necessarily about information, or some great breakthrough in knowledge. A profound piece of new knowledge is important, but it is only significant when it can be successfully experienced and imparted to the visitor. What the visitor wants to do, how they imagine spending a couple of hours of their precious leisure time is also highly significant. Can you offer the visitor an experience that will thrill, delight, transport and inform that they can encounter on their own terms? In the context of exhibitions, as in other media, communication is not a one-way street. The exhibition encounters an audience who have their own preoccupations, theories and ideas; the key to opening a successful dialogue with visitors is to take that into account. The traditional concept of an exhibition, the so-called transmission model, thinks of the exhibition of simply transferring information from the curators to the visitors, a kind of mass dumping of material to show what the curator knows and transmits what he feels that the audience should know. The new and better approach is to create a dialogue within the exhibition for the audience to bring their own thoughts, feelings and preoccupations to the exhibition. The story must be ‘opened’ to the visitor so that they can see themselves within it, or see how it relates to them. This entails thinking of the communication as a dialogue, addressing the visitor by opening up a series of stories or interventions with which they can engage in differing ways. A set of cues are proffered to engage the visitor with stories, topics, ideas and experiences. Those cues take them beyond immediate experience and into the realm of a story. As interpretive planner Ben Gammon says, ‘a great exhibition is one which encourages visitors to pause, reflect, suspend judgement, question others and themselves.’

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Who is it for?

Who is it for?

How will the story appeal to different people? Children, adults, senior citizens? How will it be experienced by people with learning or physical disabilities? The opportunity exists here to open up the storytelling process to think how ideas will have wide appeal. Engaging audiences is the special skill of ‘audience advocates’ or ‘engagement’ staff. Ideally, exhibition teams consult their audiences before planning the exhibition, and all of the exhibition development team become aware of the outcomes of the consultation, including curators. There is an onus on the whole team to think insightfully about the audience needs. Engagement specialists look at studies carried out by exhibition makers on other exhibitions and, where there are gaps, they frequently commission new studies to ask not only who will come to their exhibitions, but also ask critical questions about typical behavior of their audiences, their existing views and knowledge. Engagement specialists work with every type of audience, and they test ideas on these audiences, both through formal evaluations and less formally through personal comment and online feedback.

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How do we imagine our audience? When making anything, particularly an exhibition, exhibition teams think about who the visitors might be. You are designing for a ‘phantom public’,5 people who are not real but whom you imagine to be real. Perhaps they are like you, or perhaps not. This is inevitably cultural. I can more easily imagine an exhibition for my own white British children than an exhibition that might appeal to my Bangladeshi British neighbour’s children for example – one powerful reason why exhibition makers need to be more diverse. There are studies which help here, but I have spent a lifetime working out what my wider social group like and what they don’t like. A few studies are hardly a substitute. But one tool that many exhibition makers have found helpful is a matrix of motivations similar to that set out by John Falk on the next page. It describes how audiences are motivated in different ways and the kinds of experience that they might be looking for. It helps exhibition makers think about the types of experience that they can make to address a varied audience.

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Visitor motivations

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Explorers: Visitors who are curiosity driven with a generic interest in the content of the museum. They expect to find something that will grab their attention and fuel their learning. ‘I remember thinking I wanted to learn my science basics again, like biology and that stuff . . . I thought [before coming], you’re not going to pick up everything, you know, but you are going to learn some things.’ Facilitators: Visitors who are socially motivated. Their visit is focused on primarily enabling the experience and learning of others in their accompanying social group. ‘[I came] to give [my] kids a chance to see what early life was like . . . it’s a good way to spend time with the family in a non-commercial way. They always learn so much.’ Professional/Hobbyists: Visitors who feel a close tie between the museum content and their professional or hobbyist passions. Their visits are typically motivated by a desire to satisfy a specific content-related objective. ‘I’m starting to put together a saltwater reef tank, so I have a lot of interest in marine life. I’m hoping to pick up some ideas [here at the aquarium].’ Experience seekers: Visitors who are motivated to visit because they perceive the museum as an important destination. Their satisfaction primarily derives from the mere fact of having ‘been there and done that’. ‘We were visiting from out-of-town, looking for something fun to do that wouldn’t take all day. This seemed like a good idea; after all, we’re in Los Angeles and someone told us this place just opened up and it’s really neat.’ Rechargers: Visitors who are primarily seeking to have a contemplative, spiritual and/ or restorative experience. They see the museum as a refuge from the work-a-day world or as a confirmation of their religious beliefs. ‘I like art museums. They are so very quiet and relaxing, so different than the noise and clutter of the rest of the city.’

Falk, J., ‘Understanding Museum Visitors’ Motivations and Learning’

The ‘big idea’ For some exhibitors, the story exhibition is a necessary development to engage new generations of audiences as their habits change. For a storyteller committed to maintaining high levels of public engagement and visitor targets, this requires new tools and techniques. As Alex Burch of the Natural History Museum points out, audiences are no longer looking to exhibitions to confirm factual questions. The encyclopaedic function of the museum is now largely supplanted by search engines, browsers and websites such as Wikipedia. This is not to say that aspects of the traditional exhibitions such as object display are any less important. The object is a foundation of the experience. But exhibitions have to work hard to capture public attention. We have come to expect experiences that are compelling, surprising, thought provoking and involving. Visitors want the ‘big idea’, to bring to the fore something that you would choose to do within the space and time you have allotted. Exhibitors should ‘transport’ the visitor. The exhibition should aim not just to meet prescribed learning needs but should aim to take the visitor ‘somewhere else’. A next generation of technology is becoming available to make new opportunities available to exhibition makers. The digital ‘superpowers’ now being discussed have the opportunity to revolutionize the exhibition environment and are discussed in later chapters.

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Who is it for?

Challenges for agenda-setting exhibitions and visitor engagement Looking further into visitor studies, it becomes apparent how creating an agenda-setting exhibition can be challenging. An enthusiastic exhibition team absorbed by new information about an exhibition topic can simply forget how little people know or care about a particular topic. This is perhaps the biggest challenge to the ‘activist’ exhibition and the use of exhibitions or perhaps any form of communication in addressing issues of critical importance. It is too easy to assume that others think like you do. The following section is particularly relevant to climate change. First of all, it might be assumed that the vast majority of citizens of the UK believed in fundamental principles of science. But studies show that a significant minority of the population do not. A poll (Ipsos Mori, 2014) in 2014 found that while 41 per cent of people in the UK believe in evolution, one fifth of the population of the UK hold a creationist viewpoint.6 A report by the Natural History Museum stated that ‘there is evidence of many misconceptions among public audiences about what evolution is and how it works, e.g., that evolution applies to other species but not humans.’7 The majority response, borne out by a number of studies, is not that most people reject evolution, but that they want other perspectives such as creationism taught alongside natural selection.8 The outcome is that people in this poll want the evidencebased science of evolution to be taught alongside creationist ideas for which there is no evidence.

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The ever brilliant John Dewey has a nice line on effective learning

He describes a vital part of any effective learning as the need to suspend judgement and reflect. Learning occurs at a sweet spot between absolute certainty – which closes down reflection; and absolute befuddlement – which stops it before it’s even begun. Likewise a great exhibition experience is one which encourages visitors to pause, reflect, suspend judgement, question others and themselves. Ben Gammon, Interpretive Planner

Audience studies also show something else which is very interesting for makers of ‘activist’ exhibitions. There is a basic misunderstanding between the museum community and people at large in the world about the nature of theory and fact. People are looking for facts, which are certain and ‘true’. They are not engaged in the type of typical debate where ‘true’ and ‘false’ are constantly debated in a context where there is also consensus about greater realities. The debate about climate change particularly is confusing for many and has sown seeds of doubt in the public mind. It is hard for visitors to imagine that scientists can examine, dispute and reinterpret individual pieces of evidence amongst the backdrop of an overwhelming consensus. If a fact is ‘true’, how can it also still be questioned? This is a fault that lies partly outside of the remit of museums, but which is a real challenge for exhibition makers. Scientists work in a context in which it is fundamentally important to admit the limits to their knowledge. The working hypothesis is ‘the best we have for now’. The willingness to evaluate and question is part-and-parcel of scientific research. Yet admission of the tentative nature of science can appear to be indecision to a public not versed in science.

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Story

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1.3 Most storytelling exhibitions use linear chronology. A step forward in space is a step forward in time. There are some (few) exceptions where the last events are at the beginning and the earliest events are retold at the end.

1.4 Exhibitions are very rarely experienced in a completely linear way. Visitors routinely miss out parts of the story, and sometimes go back to see things they may have missed.

1.5 ‘Star’ exhibits draw visitors’ attention first. Visitors often see them before looking for interpretation or other subordinate exhibits/ experiences.

1.6 Stories can be told through different media: film, objects, graphics, illustrations, web material, interactivity, immersive experience etc.

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Who is it for?

1.7 Emotional rollercoaster: stories have moments of drama, calm, anticipation and resolution.

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1.8 Sculptor Lorado Taft’s ‘Dream Machine’ aimed to show copies of the world’s most important sculpture and architecture, organized in seven aisles, one for each of the world’s ‘most important cultures’, each arranged chronologically. This comparative study would reveal ‘the meaning of life.’

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It is interesting to note that to achieve real change in perceptions of issues of huge public concern such as climate change or species extinction, exhibition makers will need to address critical skills as well as lack of knowledge.9 We will all need to learn to decode scientific language. But meanwhile, scientists and interpretive planners need to understand how their statements are received. Given the persistent misinterpretation of science, the makers of activist exhibitions must take care how they communicate. Strident messages that assume a common understanding of global challenges can alienate visitors. The process of making exhibitions is a process of opening up dialogue through storytelling. Visitors are, after all, trying to enjoy a day out. Their motivations vary; some might say, ‘we always wanted to come,’ or they may simply may have been nearby and have decided to drop in. A family who finds themselves at an exhibition while ducking out of the rain are unlikely to overturn deeply held beliefs. It is critical to understand audience motivation and level of interest in understanding how to engage audiences best in exhibition topics and stories.

Communicating messages about science Studies show that the climate deniers, the creationists and the flat earthers stay away from science museums and museums of natural history. Museums are already to some extent singing to the choir. Climate-deniers, creationists and flat-earthers are unlikely to visit exhibitions that may contradict their beliefs. The real target of the ‘activist’ exhibition is the agnostic, the person who is willing to believe in multiple truths, but who can be persuaded along a continuum from faith-based ideas to evidence-based ideas.10 While visitors are generally turned off by hectoring and didactic exhibitions, evidence shows that schools trips are also negatively impacted by exhibitions that are inflexible, overly structured and didactic. Students value the freedom of museums and a break from classroomlike discipline.11 Studies show that customizable experiences, based on exploration and discovery of unique features and opportunities or the site itself, are valuable. The potential of learning from a museum visit may only be realized later in the classroom.

How can exhibition makers speak in a way that can be understood? Studies reveal how experts and ordinary visitors to museums often speak a different language. Terms such as sustainability mean different things to different people. Whereas for many scientists, sustainability might mean making drastic changes to nearly all areas of human activity to halt or at least slow global warming, when asked, a survey revealed that to most people interviewed, sustainable practices means ‘keeping things going as they are’ – quite opposite to current science thinking. The people surveyed in the UK do however have a good grasp of terms in some contexts, for example, in the context of supermarket packaging and locally sourced produce. More widely though, sustainability has become a buzz word that is used indiscriminately. Every oil company has a sustainability policy, and talks about sustainability in relation to a Corporate Social Responsibility. Words like sustainability are constantly used to refer to, for example, ‘sustainable business models’, which refer to companies making money and have no connection to climate change and, in fact, may be causing harm. The question for the exhibition maker is, what terms to use that people understand? If they are going to use words such as sustainability, they have to ask themselves how they can reinvest the word with their meaning and not the meaning in the world at large.

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Who is it for?

Wording is also very important. Terms such as ‘theory’, ‘model’ and ‘proof’ are used far differently in common usage than in science. A theory for most people is a guess, while for a scientist a theory is ‘an explanation for a set of facts, that has been well-supported and never disproved by observation and experiment.’12 It is easy to see how the public could doubt scientific knowledge about global warming or natural selection when the word ‘theory’ is used. It seems like a guess – certainly nothing for which you would want to change your life.13

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Enabling change For many ‘activist’ exhibitions, the hope is that the outcome will be change. But how do visitors help achieve change? Can a brief moment of enthusiasm at the end of an exhibition cause a visitor to take up important societal campaigns? Audience studies are critical here, not only to gauge public understanding and motivations, but also to understand how people can turn engagement into action. A biodiversity study in the UK showed that the people surveyed first of all were not aware of the level of species extinction in the UK, but also a substantial minority felt powerlessness to make change. Almost a third (30 per cent) of the UK public feel ‘there is nothing I can do personally to help protect the UK’s biodiversity.’14 This is something that ‘activist’ exhibition makers have responded to in a substantial way. As this book aims to show, action has become an integral part of the ‘activist’ exhibition. Studies also show that negative messages can make people feel powerless to make change. If you want to shock people into understanding an issue, you have to tell them they are going to lose something that they care about, or which will affect them materially, like a coral reef that they might go to as a tourist, or a beautiful landscape that will disappear forever. Only when they are emotionally engaged can you address them with intellectual arguments, information about threats and what can be done to change the situation. The order in which the public encounters these messages is important. The public needs to emotionally engage with biodiversity to personally value it before they intellectually engage with the reasons to care about the environment, understand how it is threatened and take action to help conserve it.15 Other approaches also show how we should think about portraying topics. Mark Earls is a writer and consultant on marketing, communications and behaviour change. His approach focuses on communicating who is doing something, not just what is required to change minds. Here is a quote from a radio programme: It plays much stronger to people in our culture if we say other people are doing this thing. Rather than you should. It’s a much simpler heuristic, much simpler to understand. People I know and I like, people like me are doing this . . . Don’t say what the benefit of it is, don’t say what you are going to lose, just focus on other people who also think this way, or also are doing this thing. It’s much easier to communicate. Don’t give me a rational argument, just tell me my best mate is doing it. It’s not a simple, easy, one-time only play, you have to do it repeatedly, again and again . . . like all behaviour change . . . this is what campaigners who care about rational argument forget, there never was a political discussion where people say, ‘you’ve changed my mind’, ‘you have laid out the facts of the case.’ It doesn’t work like that. And so we should stop trying to change people’s minds. There is a big body of evidence that people change their minds after they have changed their behaviour. If you think about it, post-rationalization is a very human thing.16

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Can tech provide ‘superpowers’ for the future exhibition? 16

Exhibition professionals are often divided in their opinion of the value of technology. Digital interpretation is no longer seen as ‘disneyfication’ but the danger of seeming to abandon rigour, or at least traditional practice, is still there. What is the need to embrace new technologies? Or find new modes of representing complex topics? Is the traditional teaching and study collection role of the museum being undermined? With any new adventure comes risk. The argument I will make throughout this book is that new technologies that are being used to break new ground in research are being repurposed to make exciting and popular storytelling exhibitions. 3D scanning, digitized biodynamics and other new technologies are research tools and a key part of scientific enquiry. Their repurposing as tools for immersive digital experiences is a practical use of existing hard data to reach audiences. The point remains that many of the technologies used for making history and science accessible are the same tools used for scientific enquiry. The adoption of new technologies for interpretation and storytelling is recognizably linked to new research. Digital tools used by researchers to interpret complex phenomena are also valuable as explanatory devices for exhibition visitors.

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A fundamental part of exhibitions

A fundamental part of exhibitions 17

Storytelling is an established part of exhibition making, and practitioners have adopted storytelling as a means of bringing stories to public attention. Its practice has evolved and become an effective tool for highlighting topics of urgent public interest. It can provide the background to a discourse where audiences become effectively engaged in the issues of today. For practitioners and storytelling professionals, the results of their planning are evidenced in finished exhibitions. How often does an exhibition visitor come away from the exhibition and exclaim about the quality of storytelling? By all accounts, that is rare. High quality storytelling underlies a process which becomes apparent through experience of objects, labels, script, films, interactives, images and other media. Nevertheless, storytelling remains a relatively unacknowledged but important part of exhibition making. In the following chapters, we look at examples of storytelling exhibitions and practices which may set the course for future evolutions.

1.9 This exhibition has one ‘big idea’, asking visitors to explore lying and deception in their everyday lives. Kossman de Jong, Fake. The Whole Truth, Stapferhaus, Switzerland, 2018

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2

Authorship

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Who can make an exhibition?

Can anyone make an exhibition? They can. Exhibitions are not necessarily the preserve of big institutions with huge budgets and sponsorship of big corporations or even government backing. Do you need a PhD., a bureaucracy and vast warehouses of stored objects? Well, not really. While sophisticated research skills and objects are always useful, to start the ball rolling these are not actually required. Exhibition projects start and are maintained by powerful ideas and stories and by people with the commitment to make them heard. Money and backing are important once an idea is up and running, but in the germination of an idea, money is arguably secondary to the quality of the idea and its potential to draw an audience. This chapter illustrates the stories of people working inside and outside of the museum sector to bring exhibitions to their audiences.

2.1 Seun Oduwole, architect and project champion for the John K Randle Centre for Yoruba History and Culture, Lagos, Nigeria

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Authorship

Is the world of exhibitions changing?

Looking at it from the outside, the modern machinery of exhibitions appears daunting and complex, but it is instructive to remember that even the world’s largest and most visited historic museums and exhibitions achieved their success through trial and error. They found audiences through a thirst for new knowledge and a fascination with strange and wonderful objects that only exhibition experiences can provide. Many of the visited types of exhibition were developed relatively recently, not in the 18th or 19th century but in the late 20th and still today. The Exploratorium in San Francisco, which has inspired countless imitators globally, began life in 1969 as an experimental space for hippies and artists to create interactive exhibits to teach science.1 The immersive experiences which are now sweeping across Asia, authored by groups such as TeamLab2 in Japan and viewed by millions, only began in 2001. The world’s largest and surely most impressive crowd-sourced permanent exhibition, the new NMAAHC, opened its doors in 2016.3 This is not to deny that exhibitions have a deep history, with traditions and ideas developed since the 1700s, but to point out that the landscape is changing and new ideas are constantly being sought and are finding traction in the complex and competitive world of museum-making.

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2.2 The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., US. Architecture by Freelon Adjaye Bond / SmithGroup (FAB), 2016

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Empowering ‘activist’ exhibitions

Empowering ‘activist’ exhibitions

How can people get involved and work with other exhibition makers to tell new stories? What opportunities exist to express big ideas? Some museums campaign for change, but others are staid. They don’t want to rock the boat or to upset their corporate sponsors. The story of ‘authoring’ new exhibitions therefore happens in a number of ways, outside of the existing sector entirely, inside the museum structure and through participation and collaboration with people and groups. Exhibiting organizations work slowly and methodically. If the tech industry is characterized by Mark Zuckerberg’s adage that Facebook should ‘move fast and break things,’4 most museums would more likely subscribe to ‘move slowly and do nothing wrong.’ It takes time to build trust with their visitors and almost no time to lose it, so some caution is understandable. There is also the huge cost of changing installations to consider. But nevertheless meaningful partnerships within the museum sector to build agenda-setting exhibitions have been few.

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Do you need to have all of the exhibits ready when you start to design an exhibition?

Most exhibition stories start without having all of the objects, media and other assets ready. As the exhibition story work goes on, new ideas are continually developed that require new acquisitions. There is a cut-off point for new acquisitions as the exhibition opening gets closer; showcase sizes, media specifications and other essential elements will be finalized and readied for construction and installation.

How to change? How can museums do better to support powerful and important campaigns through exhibitions? New exhibitions open on a daily basis and new ideas are being brought into the public realm all the time. Many exhibitors don’t need the support of existing institutions or at least are able to find partners who share their ideals. But for many the question remains, how can the main exhibiting institutions, museums, better respond to agendas outside of their own walls? How can they meaningfully engage with societal issues and empower their communities to speak? This a question that has the potential to shape the future of exhibiting. Museums have been conceived by new ‘authors’ or have sought to engage meaningfully with their audiences and their communities to work together to instigate and co-create exhibitions. Here are some success stories.

Setting up new institutions Once in a while, interested individuals achieve what seems to be impossible. They set up a new exhibiting institution on their own. In 2017, Nigerian architect Seun Oduwole was tasked by the government of Lagos to work up a plan for a disused building in a prominent part of Lagos. With little guidance, Seun decided through his own initiative to set up a cultural centre. Fortunately, the governor of Lagos agreed.

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Authorship

Seun felt strongly that a new institution should support and retell the stories about Yoruba culture he had heard in his youth. He had become increasingly conscious that Yoruba traditions, culture and customs were being eroded. The stories of his youth seemed to be ousted by imported television shows and the marginalization of local culture was taking over from traditional storytelling and custom. Very quickly, Seun and his team of architects worked up a plan for the Lagos Government to create a new institution devoted to Yoruba culture in Lagos, with a permanent exhibition, bookshop and performance area. He co-opted a number of prestigious supporters and collaborators, including Nobel prize-winning playwright Wole Soyinka and the support of the British Museum and Smithsonian in the curation and management of the institution. The curatorial lead was the Nigerian writer and Professor, Rowland Abiodun and the detailed curation was developed by a Nigerian-born UK scholar, Will Rea. It was an impressive team and he was undaunted by the obstacles. Seun had an infectious passion for the project and fairly soon, he realized that his plans enjoyed broad support. The path was far from smooth. In fact, the process of making the John K Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History could hardly have been more difficult. Funding failed at critical moments. The main supporter of the project, Lagos’s governor, was deselected from office and could no longer offer support. Fortunately, Seun was able to gain the support of the new incoming governor. Setting up new institutions is rare, but Seun showed how it can be achieved.

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Partnering with existing museums

2.3 Rowland Abiodun whose book Yoruba Art and Language inspired the story of the permanent exhibition at the John K Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History, Lagos, Nigeria

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Ahmed Salim grew up hearing stories from his friends about the roots of science in the Islamic world. Knowing little of the origins of science, Salim learnt that mathematics, optics, astronomy and many other sciences had their roots in the ‘Golden Age’ of scientific innovation in the Arab world from the 7th century onwards. That story became his life’s work. He set out to tell the world about the profound impact on disciplines such as medicine, astronomy, chemistry, navigation and zoology by Arab scholars. The organization he co-founded, 1001 Inventions: Discover a Golden Age – Inspire a Better Future, subsequently created an exhibition that set out to dispel the idea that Islam was opposed to science and that the Quran forbade learning outside religious texts. The first exhibits were a series of posters at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester. Before long Salim was adding objects, and interactives followed. In a few years, Salim had enough material to make a full-scale exhibition. After lengthy negotiations, Salim was able to secure the support of multiple museum partners and venues and finally the exhibition, 1001 Inventions, travelled across the globe. The touring exhibition has taken place in more than 60 venues across 15 countries, bringing 1001 Inventions exhibitions to over 15 million visitors. At first ambitions

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Empowering ‘activist’ exhibitions

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2.4 Illustration of Hasan Ibn al-Haytham carrying out optical experiments during the Islamic Golden Age, 1001 Inventions

were limited – ‘an educational awareness campaign lasting maximum two years.’5 Now 20 years later, 1001 Inventions has become a globally successful organization producing films, books and events as well as an ever increasing programme of exhibitions.

The museum ‘participates’ with community organizations For many people working in museums today, Nina Simon needs no introduction. A keynote speaker at museum conferences, she is the author of two books on museum practice which have been remarkably influential in the last few years. She now heads a nonprofit organization called OF/BY/FOR ALL that ‘provides tools to help civic and cultural spaces matter more to more people.’6 The institution she helped rescue, the Museum of Art and History (MAH) in Santa Cruz, California, bears the imprint of her ideas although she has since moved on. The MAH has abandoned the traditional structure of curator-led exhibitions and embraced a democratic model. Partnering with community support groups, they went out to the communities around Santa Cruz to suggest topics for exhibitions and asked those groups to curate and design the exhibitions themselves. The exhibition We’re Still Here at the MAH deserves a special place in the pantheon of exhibitions. Created by 186 senior citizens and designed with the help of local artists, it records ‘what social isolation feels like’, and ‘created personal artwork about loneliness, brainstormed solutions to build connection and offered their words of wisdom for future generations.’7 The resulting exhibition had few of the museum’s historic artefacts, but it responded to a social need and empowered a group of senior citizens to talk for themselves and make their own narrative on a topic that affected them personally and deeply.

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Authorship

The ‘curatorial experts’ were the senior citizens with no specialist knowledge of museums and exhibitions. No doubt they knew more about loneliness and isolation than any academic or researcher. What they placed on the walls of their exhibition was heartfelt and was expressed in their own voice and said what they wanted to say. There were a few objects from the museum’s collections in the exhibition, but in no sense was the collection fundamental to the final exhibition. Most of the exhibits came from the ‘curators’, the senior citizens themselves. By all accounts, the process of making the exhibition was not simple. To get consensus within large groups and to represent the views of so many people is complicated. The MAH emphasized how the exhibition was a collaboration with a partner organization that already had a relationship with the senior citizens. Ever thorough, the MAH published on their website a toolkit for participative exhibitions. No doubt this is a model that will be followed, and grantmaking bodies have begun to give museum donations that are tied to the participative model, which assures some propagation of this idea. This toolkit takes the place of the curator and provides a methodology for a participative process of making exhibitions.

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2.5 Created by 186 senior citizens and designed with the help of local artists, the exhibition records ‘what social isolation feels like’. We are still here. Museum of Art and History Santa Cruz, US, 2019

2.6 A major feature of the We are still here exhibition was an area where visitors could make a pledge to give their own time to support senior citizens. Museum of Art and History Santa Cruz, US, 2019

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Empowering ‘activist’ exhibitions

The museum works with interested individuals to co-create Museums have had some success in recent years by inviting individuals to share in making an exhibition. This ‘sharing’ of curatorial authority and exhibition making was in the minds of the Museum of London when they commissioned a new exhibition, Punks. They turned to Jen Kavanagh, an experienced co-curator and an enthusiast of creative collaborations. Kavanagh instantly understood the potential for community participation and involvement. She organized a ‘show and tell’ event at the museum. Over 100 people came, ready to reveal their own extraordinary stories. As Kavanagh said, ‘Punk wasn’t just about the music – it was an attitude and a lifestyle, so it was important to us that we captured the passion and enthusiasm alongside the physical objects.’8 Punks brought with them an amazing array of objects, from customized t-shirts and handmade badges to fanzines and scrapbooks. But perhaps the most important collections were their stories that were captured on film. They revealed how they met, how they made their own clothes and the intimidation of rival gangs of Teddy Boys. Bringing out these stories is something that Kavanagh clearly enjoys:

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I always try to encourage people, and empower them to be proud of what they’ve encountered and the cultural events and phenomenon that they’ve been involved with . . . and to find a way to give them a platform to share experiences with the wider public.9 The resulting exhibition was a showcase for the punks. It gave them a space to talk about a cultural upheaval in which they were at the centre. We see snapshots of the punks after they coloured their hair with food dye, where they used to hang around, how they shocked their parents and wore tartan kilts with string vests. The exhibition was to capture, like a documentary film-maker, the stories of a community. It was a collaboration showing how a story can emerge from a community, in which museums are happy to share authorship with co-creators. Kavanagh has learnt from her co-curation experiences which projects are most likely to benefit from participative approaches: ‘We have to ask, what do people gain in taking part? what are we offering them? And then what is the museum going to gain by engaging with them? And then if this is going to lead to a public output for our audiences? Because if we can’t justify something, it feels sort of insincere or it feels tokenistic, should we be doing it?’10 With the Punks exhibition, the punks themselves were highly engaged and enjoyed revisiting their past, but they also offered great stories, content and ultimately a better experience for visitors.

Co-making and co-design For some time, designers and architects have sought to develop a kind of practice that invites their clients and their users into the design process. TILT design are veterans of this kind of process and operate a multi-disciplinary practice that encompasses the design of co-working spaces, hospitality facilities and arts venues. It was to TILT that the Derby Silk Mill turned when they were seeking to design and make a new interior for the ‘Museum of Making’ at a historic site in Derby, UK. TILT are committed to a tradition of human-centred design pioneered by design heroes such as Ezio Manzini, Victor Pasternak and interdisciplinary design practice IDEO. Their starting point is a deeper engagement with stakeholders and communities to ‘co-design’. In the case of the Derby Silk Mill project, that engagement went deeper, as TILT helped to set up a workshop and facilitate co-design and making facilities. People from around Derby came into that maker space, designed components in an environment that was facilitated by TILT, and used their skills to fabricate components.

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Authorship

Should every project be a ‘participatory’ project?

‘The worst thing you can do, I think, is to engage in a participatory projects simply for the sake of it. Because you are getting people really involved in a topic, you are taking their time and you’re taking their knowledge. You need to make sure that that it’s a true partnership. And what you’re giving back to them in terms of your attention, the value we place on their stories, the way you tell their story, the design of those stories and presentation of them is the same quality as the attention and time they are giving you.’ Charlotte Kingston, Head of Interpretation and Design, National Railway Museum, UK 26

The participants in this process came from a wide range of backgrounds: newcomers to Derby who wanted to get to know local people, college students, retirees and other local people who wanted to improve their skills. The aim for Derby was both to assist in the re-making of the Museum but also to recapture the spirit of innovation that characterized its past. The Museum also ran ‘Maker Faires’ inspired by the American maker movement to foster community engagement with Derby’s history of innovation, but also to regenerate employment and work skills in the city. TILT describe themselves as a ‘hosting’ practice who create the ‘invitation’ for people to get involved. Their aim is to foster long term involvement and engagement within the community, understanding that their projects must provide real benefits for the participants. As founder Oliver Marlow said in an interview, ‘it’s about the give and the get, (people outside the museum) give something but you get something back which is more valuable.’

2.7 Co-design and co-production at the Derby Silk Mill project with TILT Design

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2.8 Co-designed and co-produced displays at the Derby Silk Mill project with TILT Design

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Curation and co-curation

Curation and co-curation

For some time, the supremacy of individual curators and their employers has been questioned. Especially for those that are grant-aided or survive on donations, the question arises, on what authority do they make their decisions about the subjects, themes and stories represented in exhibitions? The role of curators has a special resonance because of their key role in storytelling. Curators are by nature of their training unrepresentative of the community they serve and it is tempting for curators to make exhibitions for people like themselves. They are generally more educated and with narrower and perhaps very different interests than the visitors they serve. Influential figures such as Paul Sachs, Assistant Director of Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum, one of the formative figures in the professionalization of curatorial staff, wrote that museums ‘must direct public taste . . . and not be dictated (to) by it.’ He believed that museums should remain ‘firmly in the control of a trained elite’11 and it is possible still today to see echoes of this sentiment, although more subtly expressed. In fact, it is very rare for a museum to attract a broad range of the population; quite the opposite. Museum audiences are wealthier than the average population, and that persists today despite efforts to change. In the UK, the Mendoza report, for example, states that 63 per cent of people from higher socio-economic groups visited museums, compared with only 36 per cent from lower groups. There is a very considerable gap and this disparity is reflected generally in the museum world globally, not just in the UK. If Paul Sachs wanted to succeed in the task of training an elite to make exhibitions for the elite, perhaps he has succeeded. Movements across museums internationally are seeking to ‘decolonize’ museums, a pressing issue for many. Defined by The Washington Post as ‘a process that institutions undergo to expand the perspectives they portray beyond those of the dominant cultural group’12 and by the Abbe Museum in Maine as ‘at minimum sharing authority for the documentation and interpretation of Native Culture’,13 decolonization has the potential to affect almost every area of museum life. It affects who is charged with recounting and interpreting history, and it has significant impacts on attitudes towards museum collections, many collected as a consequence of colonization and directly or indirectly as a result of the slave trade. It also challenges entrenched views that place white supremacy and Eurocentric viewpoints at the centre of museum narratives.14 In the United States, movements such as Decolonize This Place stage interventions in to challenge museums on their record. The group protested when Brooklyn Museum in New York appointed two white curators, one specifically to look after the African collections.15 The appointment took effect at a time when longstanding black communities in Brooklyn are being marginalized by gentrification. They also challenged the leadership of the Whitney Museum in New York, protesting against board vice-chairman Warren Kanders’ ownership of Safariland, the manufacturer of tear gas used against members of one of the late 2018 migrant caravans along the US-Mexico border.16 In the UK, Museum Detox, an organization of mainly museum staff, has been set up to champion fair representation and inclusion of ethnic minority cultural, intellectual and creative contributions. Museum Detox ‘challenges and works to deconstruct systems of inequality that exist to enable a sector where the workforce and audience is reflective of the UK’s 21st century population.’17 In the UK, Sara Wajid, a vocal advocate, points to the lack of people of colour as heads of permanent exhibitions.

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Museums working with their communities

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Studies show that attempts by exhibiting institutions in the UK to share authorship and work with their communities have not always been successful. An influential report in the UK indicated that museums often use the groups they engage to rubber-stamp organizational plans and try to engineer false consensus in public consultations. Instead of seeing communities as true partners, they have acted as if they are helping out, as if their involvement was an act of generosity rather than a part of their main mission. The same report reveals a tendency to ignore genuine feedback when it is inconvenient. To their credit, the institutions that opened themselves up for critique were also involved in the next stage of development and were instrumental in undertaking further steps to improve participation.18 Increasingly, museums are seeing these partnerships in a new light and are taking them seriously. There is a recognition that in order to move forward, tokenistic activity is not enough. Partners and communities, if they are being asked to contribute, are given a real voice and see their input being heard and responded to. In fact, the principles are very simple and are very much common-sense. Only ask for input if you are going to listen to the answer and act on it. If you have redlines, be clear about what those redlines are, what is negotiable and what is not negotiable. Be clear with people exactly how their input is going to be used, and let them see what influence they have on decision making and on the final product. Don’t try to co-opt people into your agenda; if they don’t agree with you, then don’t try to pretend that there is agreement when there isn’t. These are the kinds of rules that people live by inside and outside of museums and, at least in theory, sound very simple. It has taken time, however, to adapt and fully respond to them. This is partly because, at least until recently, there was no obvious funding benefit for museums in working with partners outside their doors and the activity was not given sufficient backing by trustees and museum leaders. The successful collaborations are those where there is a true benefit for all concerned. The Medicine Galleries at the Science Museum in London, for example, captured a huge range of stories from collaborators, those who understood medicine from both sides, the doctor and the patient. The faces, voices and stories of patients and practitioners are featured throughout the galleries. ‘Visitors can listen to stories from therapists and their clients, see objects selected by staff and patients representing their experience of the NHS (National Health Service) today and hear rehabilitation stories from people affected by brain injuries.’19 The exhibition makers’ determination to collaborate with both medical staff and patients transformed this experience, highlighting patients’ experiences with mental health issues through films and audio recordings. Stories from individuals impacted by how medicine defines ‘normal’ enabled visitors to consider ethical and other questions about the use of medicines from both sides – medical professional and patient.

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Contested histories

Contested histories

It is hard to imagine the anger that museums can generate. The authorship of exhibitions and the leading roles in exhibiting institutions has an extremely political dimension. One story became headline news in Germany in the town of Dresden, a city which sits geographically in the East of Germany, part of the former communist Soviet Bloc. New director of the Albertinum Museum in Dresden, Hilke Wagner went to the opening of a new public artwork in Dresden’s market square anticipating a friendly gathering of culture lovers. Instead, she and her colleagues ‘found themselves surrounded by far-right protesters with megaphones, vilifying the sculpture’s organizers and its Syrian-German artist as “traitors”.’ She came to the museum with the intention ‘to make it clear that our own culture is the result of a cultural mix’ and to open Dresdeners’ eyes to the pluralism that informs the Albertinum’s collections. Instead she found herself a target of hate mail, death threats and soon began to fear for her own safety. The objection to the Syrian-German artist was a desire for a ‘Predominant German culture’ to be shown in the museum. The rally was no coincidence. A month before her arrival, a ‘Nazi emergency’ had been declared in Dresden due to the rising tide of open fascism. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) moved from a right-wing oppositional role towards flagrant racism and islamophobia. A fascist group, Pegida, marched through the streets shouting ‘drown, drown, drown’ in response to the arrival of refugees on boats in Greece and southern Italy. The attacks continued in the press as her treatment of East German art was questioned. Confronted in the street as her image became known, she found herself confined to her house for over two weeks. Wagner’s first response was to despair and she seriously considered quitting her job. But she chose to do something very brave instead. She decided to phone the people who had been sending e-mails, hate mail and calling her phone. The first call she made out of anger, but it went well. It made her feel better but also she felt that the call was positive for the person she called. She decided to call the other individuals who had targeted her. It seemed significant that apart from one woman, the rest were male.20 The outcome was a series of meetings titled ‘We need to talk’. The first at the museum was attended by over 600 people including far right groups, and paved the way for further dialogue. Wagner doesn’t pretend that the meetings were easy or polite, but concessions were made and the basis of an accord was reached. Wagner also began to appreciate some of the reasons behind the aggressive campaign against her. Dresden was one of the cities that suffered a huge bombing campaign in World War II. Its centre was 90 per cent destroyed along with the lives of 25,000 of its inhabitants. Once a dynamic centre of trade, it suffered from ‘experiences of erasure’.21 The dominance of former West Germany during reunification also undermined its importance, relegating Dresden still further. The arrival of Wagner occurred at a time when 98 per cent of all museum directors in the reunited Germany were from the West. Local people foresaw an eradication of what they knew and wished to celebrate.

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Wagner acceded to the request for more East German art, but refused to acknowledge or reflect the AfD’s male bias. An exhibition curated by Susanne Altmann showed 36 female artists from East Germany and other former Soviet states. A future thematic show will emphasize East Germany’s inclusive ideals, exploring its allegiances with South Africa, Mozambique and India. A neat ending to the story would be a reconciliation with the right wing groups, but Wagner concedes that this is unlikely given the entrenched views of the local population. However, she has succeeded in engaging in an unlikely dialogue that holds out the hope of change.22 And, for now at least, the hate mail has stopped.

30 2.9 Right-wing group Pegida stage protests in the heart of Dresden. Photograph: Ralf Hirschberger/AFP/ Getty Images

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Contested histories

This story encapsulates for me how important the relationships are between our cultural institutions and the communities that they work with. It is easy to assume that it should be possible to design a non-confrontational and accessible platform to broker the relationships between the exhibition makers and the public, but that is not always easy. Nor is the task of designing a process to enable diverse authors to have their say. Should exhibition makers take into account opinions with which they disagree? Are there opinions that should not be reflected in exhibitions? This case study shows how the role of exhibition-makers within their communities can be surprisingly complex.

31 2.10 Director Hilke Wagner opens an exhibition of East German art at the Albertinum. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/ Alamy Stock Photo

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3

Exhibits

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The ‘ingredients’ of exhibitions

This chapter discusses the ‘ingredients’ of exhibitions. It asks how powerful and impactful exhibits can narrate stories of change. For many, exhibitions are associated with high-value old paintings and sculptures sold in famous auction houses. This chapter is not about the world of the connoisseur or the art collector, but about exhibition assets, the ‘stuff’ of exhibitions which have a bearing on active political debates. These exhibits are forms of evidence which help exhibition makers tell big stories. They describe political struggle, migration, climate change, waste and species extinction. Although some will be kept in museum vaults for decades, many of these exhibits are crowd-sourced. They could be collected in research labs, in shops or simply found on the street by the exhibition makers. In one of the exhibitions described in this chapter, visitors sort through museum refuse to understand the nature of ‘waste’. Making no attempt to be exhaustive, this chapter introduces collection stories which illustrate unconventional ideas about these exhibition ‘ingredients’. There is often an assumption that exhibition stories should be illustrated and fleshed out with conventional museum objects, where the museum objects are strictly defined. If you define exhibitions as stories which can only be told with three-dimensional ‘things’ that can be mounted in showcases or hung on walls that are found in an existing museum stores, then right from the beginning there are very strict and suffocating limitations to the stories you can tell. For this reason, it is interesting to think outside of the conventional and look more widely at the ingredients that make up the exhibition cake. The main topics are contemporary collecting, sustainability, crowd-sourcing, web archaeology and the use of digital resources to make exhibitions. I argue that exhibition makers should continue to look beyond the traditional fare of exhibitions to stretch the boundaries of what an exhibition ‘object’ or ‘asset’ can be. By thinking differently, the following stories show how exhibition makers have considered alternative ways of creating stories and brought valuable attention to the stories they are portraying.

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Exhibits

Contemporary collecting and the ‘activist’ exhibition

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The history of activist collecting and curation is a fascinating subject in its own right. Curators who collect activist exhibits are outliers in many museums, particularly those that prize precious objects. Activist collecting is about exhibits that have political and social resonance but often have no financial value. The act of putting them in an exhibition is often a controversial move. By privileging what may seem without value, we can bring new attention to fundamentally important stories. In London in 2017, during routine checks, sewer workers discovered a ‘fatberg’ under London’s Whitechapel underground station. A fatberg is a huge ball of accumulated slime, used condoms, wet wipes and human waste that builds up in sewers. The Whitechapel fatberg had the distinction of being the largest ever found, weighing an estimated 250 tonnes. It was over 250 metres in length. Handled incorrectly, ‘even small amounts of fatberg could kill, from lethal bacteria which can cause life-threatening conditions such as Weil’s disease.’ Sensing an opportunity to highlight the problem of waste, the Museum of London Director Sharon Ament asked curator Vyki Sparkes to put the fatberg on temporary display in the museum. By the time, Sparkes was ready to bring parts of the fatberg into the museum, most of it had disappeared, only test samples were left. Undaunted, Sparkes took the fatberg samples and went on to work with designers to create the display, called simply Fatberg! Fatberg! soon became the museum’s most talked about display ever, with over 1,400 pieces of media coverage. Sparkes recalled 50 news crews reporting on radio, television and print, with nearly 500 articles mentioning the museum. Driving 30–40,000 museum visits, it ‘captured the imagination of millions of people globally.’1 Media interest gathered even as the fatberg sample began to ferment and decay inside its showcase. This small temporary exhibition was featured by the New York Times, ITV, CBS, Sky News, ABC Australia, Al Jazeera, every UK national paper and extensively on multiple BBC news outlets.

3.1 Visitors peer at the fatberg in a showcase. Museum of London, 2018

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Sparkes commented: Fatberg is important because it’s something made by us, and that fascinates people. As a society, we’ve created this unseen growing monster that lives in the sewers, a place that we depend on but never see. It’s also mysterious: it resides underground; and we don’t know exactly what it’s made of.2 The object was, as Sparkes agreed, ‘disgusting’ and ‘repulsive’. It showed how the accumulated sins of the city are channelled away and we hope to forget them – the cooking fat, condoms, needles, wet wipes and human waste. Sparkes decided not to try to overplay the messages of the exhibition, despite the public reaction. She saw her role as ‘putting objects in context and inspiring people to think.’ Unwilling to lecture the audience, she acknowledged: We are all a little bit responsible for the existence of fatbergs. That’s the power of this object: visitors are actually confronted by the waste our society creates. If people walk away and think a little bit about how these things are created and what our role has been in them, that’s my job done.3 Waste was also the subject of an aquarium exhibition about ocean-borne plastic. Researcher and underwater cameraman Jamie Craggs is the curator of the Horniman Museum aquarium in London. While diving and observing fish in the ocean, he began to realize that waste had become part of the underwater world. The ocean environment had become deeply affected by humans. So, he filled his aquarium with 150 items of single-use waste plastic. The aquarium featured discarded flip-flops, toothpaste tubes and yoghurt pots found in the Amazon river. Crisp packets and drinks bottles were added from a British pond. Frogs, fish, seahorses and coral reefs swam (safely) around the aquarium amongst the detritus. The Museum’s jellyfish from the tank were replaced with 30 clear plastic bags which seemed to be swimming in the pool’s artificial current. Explanatory material made clear that these plastic bags were mistaken for jellyfish and eaten by sea turtles causing fatal blockages in their digestive systems.

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3.2 The Beat Plastic Pollution display introduced 150 items of single-use and waste plastic into the permanent aquarium exhibits, alongside information about the impact plastic has on sea creatures, and actions visitors can take to reduce this harm. Horniman Museum aquarium, UK, 2019

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3.3 Alongside frogs, fish, seahorses and coral reefs, visitors see plastic bags and discarded flip-flops hanging from mangrove trees, toothpaste tubes and yoghurt pots polluting the Amazon river, and crisp packets and drinks bottles lining a British pond. Horniman Museum aquarium, UK, 2019

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The impact on the Horniman’s visitors was immediate. An ‘angry and upset’ five-year-old boy created his own 20-page booklet about the display that he took to school and shared with his local Member of Parliament. Another visitor told staff at the Horniman that she was going to clean up the beach near her grandparents’ house and there was a flood of environmental pledges by children on World Oceans Day. Waste also starred at the Science Museum in London, in an exhibit conceived by artist Joshua Sofaer. Remarkably, the ‘curators’ were the public themselves. The Rubbish Collection, 2014 was a two-part art installation in which every single thing thrown out by Science Museum staff and visitors for 30 days was photographed in a purpose-built temporary archive in the basement of the museum. In this installation, visitors were invited to open the bags of rubbish and lay out the contents on a table and photograph their arrangement before repacking the contents. Everything was then sent for recycling or incineration. The installation was a huge undertaking partly because the sheer volume of waste revealed by the exhibition. It required four assistants, 30 volunteers and the help of over 400 visitors. Five hundred Science Museum staff and the Museum’s waste contractors participated. By looking at the contents of waste bins across the museum, 281,000 visitors were confronted by the phenomenon of disposal. They considered what was beyond use and what could have been reused or recycled. The search revealed good, useful and recyclable objects that would normally be sent for incineration.

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Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition, or the contrast between objects, is important to exhibitions. When Jamie Craggs at the Horniman Museum put plastic bags and old flip-flops and ring-pulls from beer cans in an aquarium, it was the juxtaposition, the contrast of amazing fish and objects that was so powerful. There is also a contextual juxtaposition that is potent. He put waste objects in the hallowed space of a respected museum. We ask, what is being said? The reading of the adjacency and juxtaposition relies on your understanding of the exhibits. If you have no understanding of either of the objects in the first place then it is hardly meaningful to put them together, unless there is easily accessible explanatory information that makes clear why it is meaningful.

The fascination with waste went far beyond the ethical and sustainability impacts of discarding waste. Artist Joshua Sofaer described his thoughts about the process: Whether disgusted or curious, everyone it would seem, has an opinion about rubbish. We are all throwers away. The psychological desire (and most often the psychological effect) of throwing something away, is to forget about it. We throw something away precisely because we don’t want to think about it any more. I have loved watching the faces of the Science Museum visitors as they realize that they are looking at what we have collectively tried to forget.4

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Sofaer was highly engaged in the health and safety aspects of the display, and was relieved when it was over. I spent my time trying to convince scientists, curators, managers and pedagogues that it would be a fantastic idea to let members of the public get elbow deep in the museum rubbish before displaying it all in galleries that are normally reserved for precious and unique objects. Once they agreed I suddenly had a panic, as I was forced to seriously consider all the things that could go wrong: “But what if . . . ?”5 What the visitors saw was a kind of contemporary archaeology that enlisted visitors as investigators as well as museum collectors for the duration of their visit. The activity of identifying and labelling brought up questions about what was precious and meaningful within the context of a museum and constantly revealed hidden histories and stories. It asked questions about the events that led up to the disposal of items such as a mini snooker table, 16.5 pairs of shoes, 1 sleeping bag, 2 two-piece suits and ties, 1 bra, a negative pregnancy test and a love letter. The display also included a large showcase full of human waste: 650 litres of dehydrated sewage.6

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Exhibits

Contemporary archaeology Lande: The Calais ‘Jungle’ and Beyond was a temporary exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. The ‘Lande’ or as it was better known, the ‘Jungle’ was a settlement made by refugees outside Calais in Western France. The refugees arrived in Calais hoping to enter the UK hiding in lorries, ferries, cars or trains. The first encampments appeared in 1999. In the period leading up to its final destruction in 2016, they were repeatedly destroyed by the authorities. Over time the migrant camps grew, reaching to over 3,000 inhabitants. Migrants lived in poor conditions, making shacks out of any material they could find to stay warm in the often harsh conditions. Sanitary conditions were poor, and migrants relied on charity kitchens staffed by volunteers.

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By spacing objects or exhibits, you encourage the viewer to look at something on its own, to think of it as something separated and worthy of individual study. While moving things together encourages the viewer to see something significant in the way they are gathered, their proximity also tells a story. A colleague told me once about a beautifully crafted set of luxury combs and hairbrushes made for a wealthy woman in the United States from the early 19th century he had seen displayed with a whip made by the same manufacturer. Domestic slaves were routinely whipped at that time, and the luxury goods manufacturer made both items for their customers for domestic use. Displaying them together built a powerful picture of habitual cruelty to slaves in the early 19th century.

The exhibition material was reassembled from objects and visual media that survives from the ‘Jungle’ as it existed in Calais from March 2015 to the demolitions of 2016. The curator’s aim was to ‘make visible the landscape of “borderwork” at Calais.’7 The exhibits came from multiple sources. There were artworks made by displaced adults and children, activists and visiting artists. They included photographs, handmade signs and paintings. Other exhibits include a cross salvaged from the Orthodox Church at the ‘Jungle’ and a fragment of border fencing. The majority of objects on display were on temporary loan from displaced people, activists, volunteers and photographers at the ‘Jungle’. These loans bore witness to ‘human precarity, resistance, creativity, and hope’ during the brief period of its existence.8 The display was not only a critique of national borders but also anthropology museums such as the Pitt Rivers Museum itself, ‘designed to forge differences between people.’ The catalogue went on to say: Our exhibit attends to the new experimental regimes of state borderwork at Calais. It simultaneously experiments with the ethnographic museum, using the lens of ‘contemporary archaeology’ to make visible untold stories. Reassembling images, objects, environments and words from the near-past, it bears witness to the ongoing human experiences of displaced people at the UK national border at Calais.

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For co-curator and post-doctoral researcher Sarah Mallet, the exhibition was a significant moment of recognition of the struggle of migrants in Calais. The display provided an opportunity to create a space for new dialogues around the ongoing situation and to reflect on their plight. Displaying some of what survives from the undocumented present helps to ‘create a space for new dialogues around the ongoing situation at Calais’ and to make a ‘provisional time and place in which to think about our contemporary world.’9 It is significant that the exhibition concluded with an opportunity to make a contactless money transfer to a nonprofit working with refugees. The exhibition provided not only the evidence of this terrible displacement but an opportunity to support refugees practically and financially.10

3.4 Hand-made sign from 'The Jungle' encampment for migrants in Calais, France. Lande: The Calais ‘Jungle’ and Beyond. Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 2019

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3.5 A figure stands off against a riot police line and water cannon during a protest at the Calais Jungle, 1 October 2016. 35mm film, Daniel Homewood, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 2019

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3.6 Protesters walk through clouds of tear gas fired by French Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité in an attempt to break up a a 'Migrants Welcome' demonstration at the Calais 'Jungle', 1 October 2016. Digital photograph, Dan Court, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 2019

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Contemporary collecting and the ‘activist’ exhibition

Crowd-sourcing and political symbols Political symbols from recent history often seem valueless at the time they are made and used. Protest signs, badges, T-shirts and other symbols are routinely discarded after use. But a generation of curators saw the value in these symbols in the 1960s and began to collect them. In 1965, the Smithsonian tried crowd-sourcing collections from the African American community as they realized that collections were almost non-existent. Initially, there was scepticism. An editorial in the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper criticized the ‘off-handed fashion’ of the request and the apparent lack of seriousness about the collection strategy.11 Decades later, in 2016, the new National Museum of African American History and Culture on the Mall in Washington opened its doors with over 40,000 objects in its collection.12 Much had been crowd-sourced. The museum set up a donations website and elicited a staggering response. The museum continues to collect and in 2020 finds itself with over 70,000 objects.13 Prior to opening, object collecting events were held in places which were, according to the

3.7 A lobby card for the film The Bronze Venus. Lena Horne broke ground for black performers from her earliest career. In this image she is looking into the eyes of Ralph Cooper. NMAAHC, US

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Museum, ‘steeped’ in African American history such as Brooklyn, New York. The public were invited to bring along up to three objects each for review by experts (monetary appraisal was not allowed).14 A 30-page guidebook was distributed free to attendees to highlight the importance of proper preservation techniques. The museum distributed white cotton gloves, archival tissue papers and archival document sleeves to help people ‘keep their personal treasures safe.’ The NMAAHC encouraged people to bring interesting objects to the museum, but they also imparted a sense of pride and history in the artefacts that people kept. It was a win-win for both museum and public.15 The NMAAHC’s example illustrates for me the power of contemporary collecting. The African American community were not sufficiently served by existing national collections. They had very little when they started in 2007. Yet they were able to make a large artefact-rich museum in a relatively short space of time. People who donated objects took huge pride in their use in the museum. Object rifled from attics and garages were pulled out. Things that were destined for disposal found a value in the new museum. The museum now features many of the found objects on their website and the stories of how they were sourced are now themselves valuable assets to the museum. 42

3.8 A free sample tin of skin whitening cream made by the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company. NMAAHC, US

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3.9 This guard tower from Camp H at Angola Prison is a powerful, scenographic element in the exhibition narrative. NMAAHC, US

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3.10 Oldest trade union banner, a prize piece. It was made by William Dixon for the celebration of the coronation of George IV (19 July 1821). People’s History Museum, UK

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3.12 Cliff Rowe lived and worked in Russia in the early 1930s, at a time when back home Britain was going through the Great Depression. His experiences would see him go on to create the Artists’ International Association in 1933, the aim of which was to use art as an influential tool in the class struggle and to promote peace. People's History Museum, UK

3.11 A cartoon commissioned by London print shop owner George Humphrey a year before the famous Peterloo massacre of striking workers in July 1819, to warn of the dangers of radical reform and potential revolution. George Cruikshank, Universal Suffrage or the Scum Uppermost, 1819. People’s History Museum, UK

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3.13 Collected at the first Youth Climate Strike in Manchester, which was held in February 2019. People's History Museum, UK

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3.14 Crowd-sourced LBGT badges collected by the People's History Museum, UK

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Contemporary collecting and the ‘activist’ exhibition

Web archiving According to historian Peter Webster, ‘Web archives are fast becoming the fundamental source with which the history of the Web is written.’16 As the world’s information increasingly resides on networks of linked servers, the archiving of web-based material becomes critical to understanding our history. Yet websites present massive challenges for historians. Influential websites come and go leaving no trace. Looking back into recent history, we find that key pieces of information go missing: links are broken, pages are missing, and significant proportions of code are lost. Any part of a website that is passworded is also lost unless the original author can be found and can remember the password. The skills to recover and maintain defunct websites are considerable and require detailed knowledge of superseded software.

3.15 Visitors explore An exhibition of the web’s lost past using period computer hardware. 64 Bits, UK, 2017

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3.16 Visitors explore An exhibition of the web’s lost past using period computer hardware. 64 Bits, UK, 2017

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3.17 Visitors encounter old-fashioned floppy disks used to store digital information in the early days of computers. 64 Bits, UK, 2017

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How can these materials be retrieved? For some time, various organizations have employed various means to record websites using software called crawlers to index pages and enable archiving of historical web data. As Webster points out, archives are set up with differing aims and software.17 They spring from a wide range of national and corporate cultures and keep their data in a variety of formats and styles. The sheer volume of information makes comprehensive archiving an impossibility. Yet with knowledge of the various archives and their collection strategies, it is possible to search historical versions of the internet. This information is increasingly available through national libraries who make it their business to collect their national domain’s material. The most well-known of all web archives was also one of the very first: the Internet Archive, which was 20 years old in 2016. It is, and continues to be, an independent nonprofit organization. While most archives, such as the Library of Congress in the US, are institutions, the Internet Archive was conceived by Brewster Kahle as a nonprofit counterpart to his Alexa Internet, an early Web browser toolbar which both helped users navigate the Web and archived it based on those users’ actions. Alexa was later acquired by Amazon, but the Archive continues its work with Kahle as its director. Other influential archives include the Common Crawl Foundation set up by Google executive Gil Elbaz. National libraries have also taken up the task, notably the Canadian, Australian and Swedish national libraries, with a focus on national content.18 As content changes and domain services lapse, there are risks that information is lost forever. The strength of campaigning organizations is partly bolstered by some form of archive to record their past activities and provide institutional memory. Beginning in 2008, Columbia University Human Rights Web Archive at the Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research has collected human rights information. It is the official repository of the the archives of several important organizations such as Amnesty International-USA, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the Committee of Concerned Scientists. Through its Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Human Rights Institute and numerous programs and courses dedicated to this theme, Columbia University upholds a strong commitment to human rights teaching,

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Contemporary collecting and the ‘activist’ exhibition

Experiencing the old web? Jim Boulton explains:

I like doing the exhibition (of digital archaeology) because people come along and they can feel the clunkiness of the old keyboards. That is something that’s quite difficult to re-create online. You can use really old browsers and view web pages on them today which is good fun. But obviously everything is also at lightning speed. So you don’t get the experience of years ago when the download speeds were really slow.19

research and advocacy training. Committed to collecting often ephemeral web-based content, the Library preserves and provides access to human rights resources.20 Archived, discontinued websites are beginning to appear in exhibitions. Specialists maintain old hardware and discontinued web material on the computers of their day, allowing exhibition visitors to have an authentic experience of consulting old websites. Jim Boulton is one such expert, having started building websites in the mid ‘90s. He authored the exhibition 64 Bits: An exhibition of the web’s lost past which featured 32 digital artworks and 32 websites. The exhibition showcased the very first website in 1991, the first web comic and enables visitors to order a pizza on the very first transactional website. Using period computers and operating systems, his exhibitions (which include the brilliant co-authored travelling exhibition Digital Revolution) help visitors to experience the first days of the web. He expertly fixes broken links and sources forgotten code to reveal the archaeology of the internet. He finds that the experiences of old software often need the context of other period artefacts around them to give context. He displays old computer magazines of the time, floppy disks and old telephones to re-create the experience of old digital environments. Boulton recalls children trying to using a big old square mouse and being amazed by the rolling ball on the base used to track movement. For some contributors, the experience is enhanced by using old dial-up methods of connection to understand the real experience of the old web. But who holds the most web material? Looking forward, Boulton notes that an individual’s search history is available to the author, and also to search engines like Google. Websites will drop a cookie on your machine to enable them to understand which pages you have seen, but they also collect information about other websites that you visit. They sell that data to others. The complicated business of accessing this information is something that is still being discussed and explored. But the fact remains that commercial organizations hold huge amounts of data on personal behaviour of website users and that may not be accessible to the historians of the future. Successive legislative interventions have sought to regulate what data can be collected. Yet API’s (Application Programming Interfaces) are almost a standard for many websites and enable commercial websites to share individual user’s data for commercial purposes. Data has become more structured. Boulton notes that there are ‘lots of tools out there – intelligent tools to see patterns in the madness’, but notes that this is commercial information and if it is to be accessed by historians in the future, new legislation will be needed.21

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Sensory exhibits Exhibition makers can often be accused of neglecting blind visitors. Their alternatives rarely match the experience of sighted visitors. ‘Touch tours’, although valuable, are rarely equivalent to the experience of sighted people. Dialogue in the Dark is an immersive sensory exhibition set in total darkness which has for decades been touring cities around the world. Originally devised

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Exhibits

by a radio producer who worked with a blind colleague, the first opening was in 1988. Since then, Dialogue in the Dark has hosted over 10 million visitors. My own encounter with the idea was in Istanbul, where a young entrepreneur used the franchise to make his own event. The ‘exhibits’ are sensory perceptions – everything except sight. Your guide is a blind person who effortlessly navigates a circulation route in complete darkness. The tour takes you to different parts of a café, and includes crossing a shaking bridge and going on a boat ride. The visitor feels the wind of the sea on their cheek, can taste the humidity in the air, the sounds of birds, and feel the change in texture underfoot as they move across different floor surfaces. There is a hubbub of voices in a café. The experience is reliably breathtaking, and awakens senses in ways that can only be experienced in complete darkness. My lasting experience of the exhibition is the proximity and the relationship with the blind guide. The beauty of Dialogue in the Dark and perhaps the secret of its success, is the fascination with role reversal. The sighted person is the one who cannot see, and it is the blind person who is the guide and who is able to open up a world of new non-sighted experiences. The exhibition aims to ‘change mindsets on disability and diversity, and increase tolerance for “otherness”.’ For me at least, this experience was a lesson in accessibility and a true alternative to the traditional fare of exhibitions. 48

Spatial reconstruction Forensic Architecture is an innovative organization specialising in ‘advanced spatial and media investigations into cases of human rights violations.’ They work on behalf of communities affected by political violence, human rights organizations, international prosecutors, environmental justice groups and media organizations. They have forged a powerful reputation for highlighting injustice and holding governments to account. Their work is painstaking and difficult. They assemble evidence, while often being unable to visit the sites that they are investigating, which are frequently in war zones. They mount investigations using new digital tools such as 3D modelling, photogrammetry, remote satellite imagery, mobile phone footage and social media posts. Exhibitions are just one way in which they bring their work to public attention. The power of their exhibitions is the cross-referencing of evidence and the thoroughness of their research. Their investigations take evidence well beyond the typical museum object or image. They create second-by-second reconstructions of events, using social media posts, mobile phone imagery, satellite GPS information, photogrammetry and 3D modelling of crime sites. Overlapping collages of information reconstruct violent incidents in time and space, bringing home uncomfortable truths about government violence. Forensic Architecture seek public accountability for concealed criminality. Their ‘exhibits’ are untypical for exhibitions, but to some extent point the way to

3.18 A digital reconstruction of a bomb blast from a drone strike in Pakistan was displayed in an exhibition. The investigators were able to identify the positions of individuals killed by the drone by mapping where fragments of shrapnel struck the walls. Forensic Architecture, Forensic Architecture: Hacia Una Estética Investigativa, Mexico, 2017

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Contemporary collecting and the ‘activist’ exhibition

the future. Their evidence-gathering process is also remarkable. They show that digital sources whatever their source, whether from a satellite or from a smart TV will provide insights into contemporary lives in ways that we can barely foretell.22

Sound To visitors overwhelmed with imagery, it is hard to imagine how to communicate effective messages and to present exhibits in an engaging way. This was the challenge that faced awardwinning installation artists United Visual Artists (UVA) and musician, bio-acoustician and scientist Bernie Krause. Krause has been recording animals for 45 years and has amassed a collection of more than 5,000 hours of sounds recordings of over 15,000 individual species in their natural habitats from all over the world. In a TED talk23 Krause recounts his experience of human activity on the natural world. Fully 50% of my archive comes from habitats so radically altered, that they’re either altogether silent or could no longer be heard in any of their original form. The usual methods of evaluating a habitat had been done by visually counting the numbers of species and the numbers of individuals within each species in a given area. However, by comparing data that ties together both density and diversity from what we hear, I’m able to arrive at much more precise fitness outcomes.

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3.19 Wax cylinder recordings in the British Library Sound Archive. Image copyright the British Library Board

3.20 The Great Animal Orchestra, a collaboration with American musician and soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists. Fondation Cartier, France, 2016

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Exhibits

3.21 A close-up of The Great Animal Orchestra projection, Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists. Fondation Cartier, France, 2016

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3.22 The Great Animal Orchestra, bright red projections communicate the devastating impact of human interventions in the landscape. Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists. Fondation Cartier, France, 2016

UVA’s creative approach linked together the various exhibition content elements, soundscapes, spectrograms and art works into a cohesive, immersive experience that ‘three-dimensionalizes’ Krause’s recordings and suggests scenes from the natural world. Spectrograms form an abstract landscape which interprets Krause’s original recordings. The audience are enveloped in a rich and dense soundscape that makes them linger in the gallery. The recordings are a unique and accurate record of the impact that logging and other human activities have on nature. As a scientist, Krause is wary of talking about animal distress and emotion. But the silence of the forests is an emotionally powerful portrait of habitat destruction. UVA have created a meaningful installation that introduced a well-understood topic in a novel way.

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Using exhibition assets

Using exhibition assets

The individual significance of each and every museum asset is carefully weighed and reviewed in the context of the overall story. Is the story of an individual object, or its power sometimes too much to be relevant in an overarching narrative? In some cases, that is clearly the case, and perhaps the reason why the storytelling technique is less used in art exhibitions. Artworks are often their own ‘thing’ or as the Aotearoa New Zealand Maori say, they have ‘mana’ – a kind of prestige and authority which resists being co-opted into wider narratives. The implication of the storytelling method is that, once the story is established, the exhibition team can portray parts of the story using different media, sometimes interchangeably. The narrative is built by an exhibition team and objects, specimens, media, images are chosen to work with and around that narrative. But there should be, in the words of interpretive planner Ben Gammon, ‘a genuine symbiotic relationship between the story and the object. That engaging with both significantly enhances visitors’ understanding and emotional engagement with each.’24 The storytelling method creates great flexibility. One part of the story might be conveyed with objects with labels or short text panels, another through static graphic media, through a web link, interactivity or film. It creates the opportunity to use media flexibly for differing story elements. Individual exhibits work to support the overarching narrative. Flexibility is one of the chief advantages of the storytelling method, over, for example, typological organizations which rely on using consistent media throughout. Every object has its own story and it is instructive to bring them into the larger narrative. There is something about a museum exhibit that requires honesty and integrity in the way the objects are displayed and used. Like actors, they have their own characteristics and can sometimes seem lost, as if cast in the wrong film or play. When correctly used, there is a rightness about their place in the wider narrative that seems natural. When we consider how highly rated museums are in terms of trustworthiness by the public, it is perhaps because exhibition assets refuse to lie, regardless of the intentions of their human interpreters. Exhibition assets are chosen that speak eloquently. These ‘ingredients’ have their own histories, often complex and contradictory. Exhibition makers try to use the properties of each ingredient maximally, not simply object-by-object, but often as an assemblage to build powerful experiences that ‘work’ emotionally and intellectually on the visitor. The sourcing and authentication of these assets is the business of the curator. It is their life’s work to identify these assets and to establish their true story. One of the largest contributions to the truthfulness of an exhibition is the curator’s professional integrity and unwillingness to show assets which are doubted or in some way bogus. Knowledgeable curators breathe life into museum assets, and without them to describe their histories and their significance, assets are, in the words of the historian Allison Marsh, ‘orphans’. They are mute, and however carefully preserved, they have no one to speak for them and to recognize the complexity of their histories.

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The ‘stuff’ of future exhibitions

The preceding examples show how exhibition-makers have thought beyond the reflexive desire to make an exhibition out of conventional showcased objects. The fatbergs, the discarded flip-flops in aquaria, the contents of waste bins, the rescued weblinks from our digital archaeologists show us that exhibition makers can think beyond museum tropes. We also see how collection activities are changing. The NMAAHC permanent exhibitions were generated mainly by crowd-sourcing, the first major institution to do so. It shows how with determination and public support, a major museum can become a joint enterprise between the visiting public and exhibition makers. Looking beyond a restricted view of what exhibition exhibits can be, we see that experiences such as being with blind people and being guided by them through a sensory world can also enrich our experiences of story and place. The purpose of this chapter is not to denigrate great objects, but to illustrate that there are expanding opportunities and alternative ways to consider what might be the ‘stuff’ of future exhibitions. 52

3.23 Wooden sign with painted lettering surrounded by a frame, displaying hours of operation for White and Colored people at the Lallie Kemp Charity Hospital, NMAAHC, US

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4

Identity

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Museums of identity

This chapter sets out how exhibition designers can combine the ‘ingredients’ of the exhibition described in the previous chapter, to activate the storytelling environment and tell stories in a meaningful way. It introduces exhibitions that concern feelings of identity and belonging. Who are we, they ask? What is my relationship to others, and critically, where is my place in the story? We see how exhibitions can celebrate values and recount histories and how they tell stories about many things including the past, language, dress, art and music. They also engender feelings of pride and can be highly emotional. We look at storytelling techniques in this context and how design has a central role. In the second part of this chapter, the storytelling methodology is applied to the development of an exhibition at a new institution in West Africa. We discuss how Nigerian scholars foresee using the exhibition format and storytelling to create a celebration of their history and culture. The third part of the chapter looks at how world culture museums are creating new frameworks for storytelling. Making radical changes to modes of display partly through design, they seek to go beyond the ‘ethnological’ lens. They develop new partnerships with communities and seek a form of shared storytelling (or co-creation as it is sometimes described). Finally, the last section looks at the repatriation debate and how this has created a new context for long-running disagreements about the collections held in many museums.

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Identity

A new narrative

In 2016, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., finally opened the doors of the National Museum of African American Culture and History, an important day for African Americans who had been waiting for over a hundred years since the museum was first conceived. The curation and interpretation of the African American story was a huge and complex task, undertaken over a decade, and Lonnie Bunch III, the museum’s director paced the galleries before the crowds entered. He describes a curatorial ritual: Whenever I create an exhibition I spend time walking through the gallery just prior to its opening to the public. This is my time to say goodbye, to reflect on the work and the collaborations that made the show possible. Once the public enters an exhibition it is no longer mine.1 He goes on: The impact, the interpretive resonance, and the clever (or so I hoped) visual juxtapositions are now for the public to discover. So, on September 16, 2016, the last day before a series of preopening receptions that would shatter the silence of creation, I walked through all 81,700 square feet of the inaugural exhibitions of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), saying my farewells and marveling at what we had created.2

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For over ten years, Bunch and his team juggled story, interpretation and project management as well as the 160 media presentations, 3,500 photographs and images that peopled the galleries and the over 2,500 artefacts winnowed down from 10,000 objects that were considered for exhibition. The undertaking was a vast collaboration between the museum’s staff, the interpretive designers Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the architects Freelon Group/ Adjaye Associates/Davis Brody Bond and many others. The opening was a moment of arrival, as the museum and the African American story took its place on the Washington Mall.

4.1 View demonstrating the dynamic impact of exhibiting at multiple levels, NMAAHC, US, 2016

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A new narrative

As Bunch points out, ‘Museums are at their best when the collaboration among designers, curators and educators sharpens the interpretive and visual edges of the exhibitions, making the past accessible in a way that provides both emotional and intellectual sustenance.’3 The partnership with RAA enabled the museum to tell, in John Hope Franklin’s words, ‘the unvarnished truth . . .’ and in the words of Bunch, ‘not to shy away from the pain but dull that pain by celebrating the wonders of a community.’4

4.2 A record of the captive slaves transported across the Atlantic to the Americas showing individual journeys and the numbers transported by slave-trading nations. NMAAHC, 2016

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A narrative framework One of the team’s biggest decisions was the narrative structure of the exhibitions. Should a linear chronological scheme be adopted? Or would the use of chronology reduce the complexity of the narrative? The client team were anxious that the exhibitions should not seem like a triumphal march toward ‘inevitable racial change and progress.’5 Bunch felt that it was important to ‘problematize just how change happened in America and that nothing was inevitable, not freedom, not civil rights, not economic mobility.’6 The team considered the alternatives. Visitors at the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened more than a decade earlier, had been confused by a lack of visible narrative. Would a linear chronology enable visitors to navigate the complexity of the story? After reviewing a ‘mountain’ of audience surveys from other projects, Bunch and his team finally chose a linear chronological path to steer the visitor through the museum. The chronological approach was felt to be the most likely to be comprehensible and the least confusing to visitors. Storylines, key artefacts in the museum’s collections, were arranged and formed the spine of the experience. The team worked to ensure that the audience would find familiar stories and events that made the museum accessible.

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Identity

Developing volumetric relationships Important design decisions needed to be taken at the outset. The most critical were the volumetric relationships, the manipulation of the building to create visible links between galleries. It was felt by RAA that the History Gallery, located just below ground, needed to be expanded to create a series of thematic and conceptual links between the levels which seemed too isolated. Once approved by the director this dramatic re-conception of the interior challenged architects to excavate an additional three floors of open space below ground. This intervention introduced a ramp that evokes the vision that Martin Luther King saw at the mountain top: The promised land was where you did not have to march for your dignity. It was where you did not have to sing for your freedom . . . The Promised Land was that sacred place where all of God’s children would stand as equals on level, fertile ground.7

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The story’s ‘foundations’ and beginnings were placed in the excavated floors. There is a physical, narrative and experiential ‘rise’ as visitors climb a ramp that takes them above ground. The physical emergence of the ramp from the basement level mirrors the emergence of African Americans’ spiritual journey on America’s ‘level, fertile ground’. In addition, the designers devised portals in the building envelope to offer views of some of the well-known symbols in America such as the Washington Monument. The aim was to emphasize the museum’s national significance and to symbolically align African American history with American history in its most symbolic location. As with all interventions to a physical building, it was a difficult decision that took time, but one that finally paid off. The drama of the ramp, the intellectual and emotional links made by creating visual connections across floors was a distinct attribute. Lonnie Bunch, once the exhibition was opened, thought that the right choice had been made: ‘As a result of this adaptation, the exhibitions convey a sense of rising from the depths of the past to a changed present and a future of undefined possibilities.’8

Should visitors be encouraged to walk along a single prescriptive path?

Where there is no pre-prescribed visitor path, people make unpredictable intellectual connections in novel ways. That could be considered a bonus. People are making up their own minds about what they see. But not all visitors like that. Some are confused, and worried that they have walked the wrong way. A visitor to one exhibition, Food for Thought in the Science Museum in London, said: ‘You feel like a rat in a maze, not knowing quite which way to go.’9

There were multiple other questions for the development team. Should the exhibition start in Africa? How should slavery be remembered and interpreted? How should racial and sexual violence be presented? The expression of the content of the exhibition design relied on a number of techniques developed over decades, both by the client team and the designers.

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A new narrative

Scale and context What did slavery really mean? What kind of conditions did the slaves suffer? To show context, the team needed to communicate the scale of the slave trade. An entire gallery wall held the names of individuals affected by the domestic slave trade. The numbers of slaves carried by ships from different nations during the brutal Middle Passage were listed. And those numbers are staggering. The cruelty of European nations was exposed as the shocking numbers of slaves trafficked by each country is revealed.

Humanizing history and context In other interventions, the hold inside a slave ship, the São José, was partially recreated, to convey the reality of the transatlantic crossing. This enabled the team to expose the appalling conditions suffered by individuals and to help communicate at least some of the human experience. The design team created a visitor route through the museum that maximized visitors’ engagement with some of the most emotionally resonant artefacts. On the walls, quotes from Alonso de Sandoval, a Jesuit priest, in 1627, bring home the reality of conditions below deck: ‘There is no Spaniard who dares to stick his head in the hatch without becoming ill . . . So great is the stench, the crowding and the misery of the place . . . Most arrive turned into skeletons.’ Again, the context of the slave’s lives was communicated using materiality, lighting and an arrangement of artefacts found on the ship. The designers wanted visitors to see, as far as possible in the environs of an exhibition, the conditions of slavery. Their aim was to make plain the reality of the appalling abuses visited upon people who, as Bunch describes, ‘had hopes, shared laughter and raised families.’

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4.3 A slave auction block where as Bunch describes, ‘enslaved African Americans were torn from family and friends and examined like animals’ recovered from Hagerstown, Maryland. NMAAHC, US, 2016

4.4 A quote displayed on the wall of a darkened gallery helps to contextualize the terrible conditions endured by slaves during transportation. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, NMAAHC, US, 2016

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Identity

Juxtapositions Juxtapositions of objects, texts and artworks were critical. The exhibition-makers were determined not to shy away from either complexity or controversy. In one example, a pair of shackles is displayed next to a cradle showing how babies were born into slavery. In a second, the words of the US Declaration of Independence, ‘All men are created equal . . .’ is the backdrop to a racially segregated train carriage. The most telling moments in the exhibition use national symbols to question the moral underpinning of the state. A statue of Thomas Jefferson stands tall in the gallery. Mounted behind him are 60 bricks with the names of the 60 slaves he owned, three of whom were his own children kept by him in slavery. Brass text behind Jefferson declaims, ‘The Founding of America’. It asks the visitor, is America built on slavery’s abuses? In another display about Martin Luther King, you see a famous photograph of him speaking at a podium on the Mall in Washington. But you also see the bucket that he used to soak his blistered feet after the Freedom March. The juxtaposition of the image of King, and the bucket brings the visitor closer to the reality of his fight for freedom. And there are moments of uplift too. The black-gloved fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics are shown as statues, raised in protest. There are the cleats worn by Jesse Owens, the African American sprinter who triumphed at the 1936 Olympics as Adolf Hitler looked on. The exhibition designers have crafted moments of uplift and celebration alongside some of the most painful exhibits to be seen in a museum.

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Film and interactivity For the museum team, it was critical that a broad range of film material, images, and objects be used to create a history that was accessible. Director Lonnie Bunch called this mixture a ‘mosaic’ of exhibits. This neatly describes the interplay of varied media that is characteristic of the modern storytelling exhibition. NMAAHC also made a commitment to sophisticated and accessible interactives to broaden appeal to visitors with varied learning styles. As in many exhibitions, interactivity enables the more active ‘learn-by-doing’ visitors, often children, to engage with exhibition stories. Interactives housed in a separate genealogical centre also enable visitors to explore family roots.

Storytelling booths After experiencing the exhibition narrative, visitors need time to reflect on their experiences. Reflection booths were designed for those wishing to seek space to share their own stories. Designed with simple story prompts, users are enabled to record stories about their families, the meaning of African American culture, or the reasons why they chose to spend time at NMAAHC. Recordings became an important part of the museum’s archives and ‘an opportunity to reinforce our commitment to sharing the stories of the past that are often little known.’ The exhibitions at the NMAAHC were a huge undertaking and involved thousands of material choices and endless re-working of circulation, design and re-design of the visitor experiences. Over 2,500 artefacts were displayed, nearly 6,000 graphic panels were designed and 160 media productions were shot, edited and installed. The exhibitions are an affirmation of an identity and a common struggle for African Americans. The placement of the museum on the Washington Mall is a permanent physical marker that confirms the African American story as central to America and a recognition and record of a continuing struggle.

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A new narrative

4.5 Segregated Lunch Counter table interactive and Panorama of the Civil Rights Movement (wall display on left). The goal of the interactive is to teach visitors about the methods and organizational approaches used by activists for protests during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The twelve 42-inch multi-touch screens are embedded into a modern interpretation of a Woolworth’s lunch counter.

The New York Times declared:

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The museum’s creators did not want to build a space for a black audience alone . . . The African American story is an American story, as central to the country’s narrative as any other, and understanding black history and culture is essential to understanding American history and culture.

Chronology in exhibitions

Most exhibitions of history are chronological; a step is also a step forward in time. Exhibition makers are ambivalent about chronology as it can lead to misconceptions about content. ‘Progress’, or a move forward in an exhibition, can be confused with ‘progress’ or ‘advance’ in society – an inevitable march towards a great future goal. This is why Lonnie Bunch, the director of the NMAAHC, hesitated before using a linear path in the permanent exhibitions. In fact, there have been exhibitions in which there was an intentional march towards a great future goal. MoMA staged a triumphal exhibition called Road to Victory at the end of World War II designed by Herbert Bayer, the famous Bauhaus photographer and graphic designer. This replayed the events of the war with an inevitable victory march at its conclusion, complete with cheering crowds. There is at least one example of an exhibition in which time moved backwards, the Botticelli Reimagined exhibition at the V&A.

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Identity

An opportunity

In 2015, Nigeria’s Governor of Lagos, Akinwunmi Ambode, saw an opportunity to finally scratch an itch that had been bothering him for some time. He was perturbed by the poor state of a building that was in the very heart of Lagos, the John K Randle Centre. Although it was a historic building commissioned by a successful and prosperous doctor of Yoruba heritage, it had become dilapidated beyond repair. It had once housed a beautiful swimming pool intended to teach Lagosian fishermen and sailors how to swim (there were frequent drownings off-shore), but that had long-since fallen into disuse. The building was a wreck and it was in the middle of a district that Ambode wanted to develop and turn into Lagos’s new cultural district. Bulldozers moved in immediately and in no time the site was cleared. When architect Seun Oduwole arrived to look at the site, there was nothing left. Even the historic turnstiles of the swimming pool were gone. Though sad to see the demise of the old building, the new site offered an opportunity to transform Lagos’s cultural offer. Before he left the site to head home, he was already drawing up plans in his mind.

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4.6 The John K Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History under construction. Lagos, Nigeria

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An opportunity

Yoruba storytelling Oduwole had grown up watching Nigerian children’s TV. A regular children’s programme broadcast a Yoruba storyteller, sitting around a baobab tree with children at his feet. As a child, Oduwole was glued to the TV as storytellers recounted traditional stories of Yoruba gods, their wisdom, their intrigues and their escapades. But these broadcasts ceased decades ago, to be replaced by programmes purchased cheaply from abroad. A modern generation of children had grown up with Disney animations. Knowledge about the old gods, Osun, Ogun, Shango and others was in decline. Yoruba songs, festivals, carving and praise-poetry oríkì were no longer being taught to young people. Very soon, Oduwole was joined by academic advisers, exhibition designers and others in the re-making of the John K Randle Centre as a place for the celebration of Yoruba Culture and History. The team conceived of a new institution that could help Nigerians re-discover their traditional stories and customs. They wanted to make a showcase for Yoruba culture but in a way that was unique to the culture. The chief inspiration was a book by Rowland Abiodun, author of Yoruba Art and Language. Abiodun’s reading of Yoruba culture was instrumental in the making of the exhibition with invaluable contributions from Jacob Olupona, Henry Drewal and Will Rea, a native Yoruba speaker who took on the role of exhibition co-curator.

Centralising oríkì

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4.7 Mural of Yoruba music legend, Fela Kuti. Kalakuta Republic Museum, Lagos, Nigeria

Abiodun dislikes the use of ‘museum’ as a title, and resisted the reflexive use of a typical museum-like experience. Abiodun’s critique of the standards and principles of Western aesthetics drove a desire to make an experience that is Yoruba in every facet. Key Yoruba forms such as oríkì, inadequately defined as ‘verbal and visual performances’ were to be central. Festival costume and ritual, praise poetry, storytelling, music, folklore, art, theatre and poetry were all to be part of the experience. He wanted movement, sound, colour and the characteristic textiles of Yorubaland to be everywhere, particularly the asoke styles. The Masquerade performances, a central part of Yoruba festivals, would feature prominently. The second part of the experience would feature some of the world’s most famous and influential writers, musicians and theatre directors. Yoruba culture is central to the work of Nobel-prize winning author Wole Soyinka and the inspiration behind the work of globally famous Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.

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Key:

4.8 Plan showing experience map of permanent exhibition. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, John K Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History, Ongoing

Soundscape / audio-point Programmable lighting Video/Audio Interactive Virtual-reality Contributors’ recording booth

Exit

Visitor-generated content Soundscape: Future Yoruba

Entrance

Audio-points: Modern culture

Soundscape: Masquerade

Audio-points: Diaspora music

Exhibition entrance

Soundscape: Beginnings Creation Soundscape: Beginnings House of the Head 0

Soundscape: Sacred Authority

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5

10

20m

Soundscape: Marketplace

4.9 The Custom and Practice gallery shows historical Yoruba customs, traditions, fabrics and sculpture. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, John K Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History, Ongoing

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4.10 The Modern Yoruba gallery shows the emergence of Yoruba art, literature, theatre and music in the 20th century. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, John K Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History, Ongoing

An open-ended exhibition For Abiodun and his colleagues, Jacob Olupona and Henry Drewal, Yoruba culture continues to develop and grow, so the exhibition is open-ended. Young Yoruba visitors would go to a booth to give their own version of how Yoruba culture would develop. ‘Boss’ graffiti, a modern expression of Yoruba art would adorn the walls, while modern partygoing and the so-called Owambe flamboyant party craze would also feature. For the designers, the challenge is to express so much in the limited space. First of all, to create a space which expressed the elements of the traditional Yoruba town, the market, the textiles, the role of the Oba (traditional ruler) and the role of women as traditional leaders of the market. The buy-in and participation of traditional rulers, craftspeople, market traders and priests was essential in this retelling.

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Using Yoruba culture as an inspiration for storytelling For every facet of a visitor experience, there is a Yoruba tradition or custom to be observed. A Yoruba ‘welcome’ sculpture adorns the reception. Appropriate oríkì were chosen to supplement every aspect of the Yoruba life, distinctive musical rhythms were chosen for every era, and textiles and hairstyles were all part of the mix. The exhibition also celebrates the role of Yoruba politicians and their resistance struggles against colonialism and their impact on the emergence of a post-independence Nigeria. The team wanted to resist solemn museumification and to some extent, self-questioning. If the spirit of the Yoruba context was to be observed, it was critical to convey the boisterousness and noise of Yoruba culture, with drumming and spoken oríkì enlivening every space. For museum critics, the making of an exhibition in Nigeria is an important moment in the development of the storytelling medium. The use of museums by colonial powers to create ‘imagined communities’ in their colonies was remarked upon by the influential author Benedict Anderson. They were seen as an instrument of oppression, not celebration. The making of the John K Randle project by and for Yoruba people in Nigeria has been, though still in progress, an uplifting experience. Seun Oduwole resists the interpretation of the Yoruba project as something that might demean and reduce Yoruba people. He feels strongly that the John K Randle project is an overdue celebration of a culture which needs to celebrate its strengths and to resist erasure by increased globalization.

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The complex legacies of world museums

In this section, museums that display ‘world collections’ are discussed. This is an area which is of importance to exhibition makers. As world collections bring stories of places beyond national borders, they have also been criticized. Their depictions of people and places have in the past been characterized by colonial attitudes and legacies. This touches on the treatment of images and objects by designers who work on these displays. What is appropriate? How does this work differ from other kinds of museums? The Weltmuseum in Vienna was closed when Steven Engelsman arrived as its new director in 2012. An intellectual climate that undermined the basis of the museum’s displays threatened its existence. Ethnographic study and display of ‘foreign’ collections was challenged on many fronts. As the artist Rasheed Araeen said succinctly in 1999, ‘I don’t want to be ethnologized’,10 a sentiment that is widely echoed by other non-white citizens from around the world. They saw their cultures displayed and analysed through a distorted lens in museums. It required a direct and clear response from Engelsman if his plans to re-develop the museum were to succeed.

66 4.11 The collections of four different explorers including Captain James Cook, depict the earliest encounters between Europeans and the diverse cultures of the Pacific. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Weltmuseum Wien, 2017

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4.12 In his own words the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria suffered a ‘collector's mania’ as he purchased over 14,000 toys, weapons and other objects during his 10 month long comingof-age journey around the world. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Weltmuseum Wien, 2017

67 4.13 On display in Austria for over 500 years this famous Aztec feather crown named the ‘Penacho de Moctezuma’ was the subject of a joint Mexican and Austrian conservation project. Through a special arrangement, visitors of Mexican descent have free access to the exhibition. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Weltmuseum Wien, 2017

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4.14 A discursive space with a large interactive media table explores the colonial world and Austria’s complicity in colonial enterprises. Here visitors explore and discuss difficult questions concerning the provenance of objects and their relevance in the light of Austrian collecting policies and the wider notion of cultural stewardship. Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Weltmuseum Wien, 2017

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Addressing colonial history was a priority in the refurbishment. Engelsman said: ‘The provenance of the collections is essential, and the voices of colleagues from the countries of origin of the collections explain to our visitors why they are historically important—that is an essential part of the new presentation.’11 Engelsman and the design team devised a gallery titled Shadow of Colonialism to encourage open debate about its legacies. Here objects play a role, but the central element in the gallery is a giant media table featuring an interface for group work on object histories and colonial archival materials. Visitors can work in facilitated groups or search through materials individually. The ongoing commitment of the museum to transparency continues long after the opening. Newer exhibitions such as A Colonial Thing open up space for public scrutiny. The exhibition shows how restitution guidelines relate to twelve specific objects. The gallery opens up a ‘discursive space for visitors that reveals diverse and surprising facets to the question of the “colonial object” and its future.’12 The display asks who needs to, should, or can restitute artefacts? To whom should material culture be returned? Designer Tim Ventimiglia was able to draw on previous experience whilst working with the Weltmuseum. A decade earlier Ventimiglia had worked with the Smithsonian when it sought to restore artefacts held in Washington to the Alaskan native peoples. That project created a museum space that enabled the Alaskan native people to re-engage with their heritage. Culturally sensitive artefacts were brought back to a place where they could be understood and enjoyed. The selection of objects, the resulting interpretation and display was developed with the host communities and not about them. Through continued consultations with Alaskan native scholars and elders of communities the knowledge continues to grow around the collections.

A designer’s role in making representations of culture For Ventimiglia it was important that the designers’ role be properly defined in this arena. Although in Vienna the designers did not work with host communities, he feels that it is important

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to stress the potential for involvement of designers. Ventimiglia insists the designer could be considered an essential participant in the work of creating exhibits that ‘tell stories, that invite participation and interaction.’13 They can work with and listen to host communities and participate in key decisions about the arrangement and presentation of artefacts. Artefacts also have display conventions associated with them that designers need to be aware of. In the same way that European Graeco-Roman sculpture is displayed on plinths, other cultures have their own conventions. The final say on the appropriateness of a display should rest with communities who produced them, working with designers where possible. For the designers, this was a fascinating aspect of object presentation. Wherever possible, presentations referred to original presentation forms and methods, though in abstracted form. Also, they tried to group objects together when appropriate. Single objects lose meaning when they are separated and become purely aesthetic expressions if presented alone. Ventimiglia’s goal was ‘to present cultural materials with a sense of original purpose and context.’14

Non-contextual exhibitions

Most storytelling exhibitions try to communicate the context of the story they are telling through graphic design, groupings of objects, spatial layout and design etc. A display isolated from contextual information creates an impression that objects were made as individual artworks for aesthetic reasons. They become art objects, symbols of individual artistic prowess and personal vision. Particularly for ethnographic objects, their relationship to the societies from which they emerge is invisible and their original purpose and role in the societies from which they are emerge is lost. This was the subject of Brian O’Doherty’s influential book Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space.15

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Representations of people Presentation of ‘people’ images in world museums has a particular consequence. Photographs of individuals stand in for and can appear to typify whole cultures. The impression given from a few historical artefacts and a brief museum text can be misleading without sufficient understanding of historical and social context. At worst, displays can reinforce racial stereotyping and reductive ideas. Museums are at pains to avoid displays which give these impressions, but those implicit biases cannot entirely be precluded. Against that, world culture museums strive to be places of cultural exchange, scholarship and a forum for dialogue. If world cultures cannot be discussed and displayed in a museum, then where can audiences build awareness of the world outside their immediate environs? It must be noted too that world museums are not just portrayals of foreign cultures, they also relay stories of national and imperial history. Many of the collections in the Weltmuseum, for example, were trophies acquired during a time of conquest, notably the famous feathered headdress which tradition holds belonged to Moctezuma II and was acquired from Spain. It was part of the plunder taken during the Spanish conquest of Central America which devastated the Aztec population. Increasingly world museums are looking to showcase the work of contemporary artists and artefacts for their galleries. Thoughtful, visually exciting art now abounds. The artists chosen are varied, but often their work comments on and questions colonial patterns of thinking, and the impacts of colonisation. As a result, the world museum has the opportunity to become richer and more attuned to new cultures emerging beyond national boundaries. It points to a future in which visitors can see the world less reductively and reflect on the past in new ways.

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Repatriation

For some time, the hot topic in museums has been repatriation – giving back to countries items that had been stolen or wrongfully acquired. In their zeal to make comprehensive collections, some of the museums of the past were omnivorous. They would gobble up anything that came their way. Motives were mixed. Some collections abroad were acquired by plunder,16 others were bought for study or private use. The presence of some of these objects in museums is an embarrassment now.

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4.15 A visualization of the central gallery of a proposed new museum in Lagos dedicated to Nigerian history. Image from the study commissioned by Lagos State, 2018

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In Nigeria, the outrage is palpable. Sir Martins Akanbiemu, a retired director of the Federal Ministry of Culture and National Orientation, listed five ways in which modern-day Nigeria, a former British colony, was denuded of its most prized religious artefacts. He cites the systematic imposition of religion (the so-called ‘Bible and the Gun’ era) which caused local populations to destroy their own objects under the influence of Christianity, the unequal exchange of gifts where objects of great value were taken in exchange for low-value European goods, the removal of art works by unscrupulous researchers, the illicit trafficking of Nigerian works of art later acquired by European institutions and lastly ‘share plunder’, the wholesale ransacking of Nigerian towns such as Benin City by troops on ‘punitive’ missions. What has been taken, he goes on to say, is of ‘vital emotional and national value.’17 In a radio broadcast, National Museums of Kenya curator Juma Ondeng expressed the same sentiments differently: We have a number of objects in European museums which we feel should come back, it’s about identity, but there is also the feeling of hopelessness and bad memory because we know how some of those objects left the continent and left the country and so we are talking about a situation where to give an analogy, someone breaks into your kraal (village enclosure) and takes away your animals and then you find them in their kraal, but you have no power to take it back because of the dominance of whoever stole your animals. It’s the power relation thing. So you see the object but you are helpless even if you know they were illegally taken away from your country, your people, there’s nothing you can do.18

Government directives to begin repatriation

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President Emmanuel Macron’s government in France set a new tone and triggered fresh speculation about large-scale restitution of museum objects to Africa. Macron famously said in a speech in Burkina Faso: I cannot accept that a large share of several African countries’ cultural heritage be kept in France. There are historical explanations for it, but there is no valid, lasting and unconditional justification. African heritage cannot solely exist in private collections and European museums.19 The former culture minister, Françoise Nyssen, was quoted in a radio broadcast talking about the impact on African countries of the widespread removal of cultural artefacts: You are more rich when you know your culture. You are more confident when you know who you are. So you need to know your story, to know your culture and be proud of it . . . We must open the museum, we are so conservative with the great museums.20 At the same time, criticism has come from outside government. In the UK, Alice Procter, a young PhD student angered by a lack of acknowledgement of the provenance of collections, started a series of museum tours called ‘Uncomfortable Art Tours’, conducting visitors around London museums pointing out the numerous objects acquired by dubious means. The mission proclaims, ‘we seek to resist triumphalist nostalgia with art history. How did the narratives of Empire come into being? Who controls them? And how can we learn to see through the whitewash to the truth?’21 The implication that our museums are a ‘whitewash to the truth’, is a severe one and not a message that can easily be escaped. Procter’s message is echoed by organizations such as Decolonize This Place in the US, the Museum Detox group in the UK and others around the world.

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4.16 Benin Bronzes at the British Museum, UK

Attempts to reframe these debates have met with derision, and action is required. For generations of new museum professionals, there are genuine questions about what messages museums convey and what their aims can be in the future. For my own profession, exhibition design, there are other questions. Alice Procter stated that the exhibitors should ‘display it like you stole it’,22 in other words make plain to the visitors the provenance of museum objects. How can this be done, and how can important cultural artefacts be restored to newly designed buildings in the countries from which the artefacts were taken?

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How to fix it? One of the most famous appeals for restitution comes from Benin City in present day Nigeria. Benin City was sacked in 1897, and almost everything that British troops could lay their hands on was plundered. Judging by the huge collections in museums around the world and the paucity of objects on display in Benin City’s current museum, they must have taken almost everything. According to architect Giles Omezi who works there, Benin City is a proud place, but by European standards, it has some extreme challenges with food security, infrastructure and education. Efforts are underway with a highly motivated and astute governor, but there is little government money to build expensive new museum space to house the multiple collections that should be handed back. A group of museums, the Benin Dialogue Group, has met for over a decade to discuss bringing artefacts back to Benin City. This group aims to negotiate the conditions whereby objects can be returned on loan. On 19 October 2018, at the National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands, the Benin Dialogue Group agreed a number of proposals towards the establishment of a new museum. This kind of initiative has set a course to create the opportunity for longer-term sharing of ideas and partnerships. However, what has become clear is that initiatives to repatriate require more than just a desire to return items. Finding a new custodian for plundered items is not as easy as it sounds, and often the infrastructure required to house and display items in climate-controlled displays is absent. Cultural artefacts were, after all, not taken from established museums. They were taken from leaders who were dominant figures in a nexus of power relationships that have since vanished. Initiatives are underway to make a new museum in Benin that will provide a fitting showcase for the plundered goods. A series of long-term loans from the museums involved in the Benin Dialogue Group could see the Benin Bronzes returned to their home for the first time since 1897. The Benin-based Legacy Restoration Trust is beginning the development process at the time of writing.

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A new chapter for the storytelling exhibition

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This chapter discusses the importance of exhibitions in telling stories about culture, language, political struggle and many other things. It seems to me that these exhibitions are very important. At the NMAAHC, there are a number of recording booths where people talk about their experience at the museum and relate their own responses and reactions. They are remarkably emotional and heartfelt. People are overwhelmed. They swear to come back and they do, often making multiple repeat visits. The John K Randle Centre exhibition makers have been bolstered by tremendous enthusiasm from the wider community. A radio phone-in show was swamped with calls giving encouragement, making suggestions for content and offering support. Tours of the exhibition site during the building construction were over-subscribed as Lagos’s famous artists and political figures sought to know more about the project and understand its potential. Everyone it seems has an opinion about what should be in the exhibition and has ideas about how they should be represented. But there were few questions about the need, and the voices supporting the idea of the project appear to far outweigh the doubters. The exhibitions described in this chapter, however carefully devised, are by their nature imperfect. Despite everyone’s best efforts, there are always omissions. The nature of the storytelling exhibition is that it is impossible to express every story and viewpoint. From the moment they open, each exhibition will be re-thought, argued over and re-examined. The curators of these exhibitions are reflective of their own and their exhibition’s limitations. The ones I have spoken to welcome interventions by external critics and often humbly accept criticism as part of the territory. There is also intense questioning about an institution’s agendas, and how it might be influenced by corporate sponsorship, government narratives and other influences. For the exhibition makers, the ability to inquire into and examine motives, not just external pressures but one’s own implicit cultural assumptions and biases, and to make reasoned judgements transparently and sensitively is key. This is not a process that is done once but is a constant process of re-appraisal. By the evidence of the exhibitions discussed, the work of the identity exhibition is important. Designers as well as other exhibition makers have the opportunity to make significant contributions.

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5

Wonder

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The feeling of ‘awe’

The first Pacific settlers arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand, the land of the ‘long white cloud’, on expertly crafted sailing vessels. To traverse the vast Pacific, they used centuries-old navigational techniques, remembered and passed down through stories, songs, and models. They were guided by the seas, skies, and wildlife, including currents, clouds, and birds that signalled land. Journeys were hazardous. Islands are few in the Pacific, and to discover land was a gamble. To lose the gamble was to be adrift with diminishing food and water and little hope of finding land in the vast expanses of the Pacific. Te Taiao | Nature is the new natural-history zone at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa). It tells the story of Aotearoa New Zealand’s unique environment, the threats it faces, and how people can work together to protect it. Ma-ui, a hero of the Pacific, introduces visitors to the space – they see him arriving on the shores as they arrive to the exhibition. His story reflects that told by Ka-ti Ma-haki ki Makaawhio, a small sub-tribe of Ka-i Tahu in the South Island. It’s an apt beginning to this chapter, about the making of ‘awe’ and ‘wonder’ in exhibitions, a central part of what exhibitions are. You can imagine Ma-ui’s awe as he landed on the dramatic shoreline, seeing for the first time its towering mountains and meeting its strange birds. Te Taiao | Nature aims to inspire in visitors a connection with the land, before engaging them to help address big environmental challenges: introduced pests, fresh-water quality, ocean health, and climate change.

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5.1 At the entrance to Te Taiao | Nature, visitors meet the Pacific hero Ma-ui. Shapeshifter, trickster, and innovator, Ma-ui represents the relationship of humans to the land. Te Taiao | Nature, Te Papa, 2019

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5.2 A child explores an animated projection of the continent Zealandia splitting from the supercontinent Gondwana, beginning around 85 million years ago. Te Taiao | Nature, Te Papa, 2019

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5.3 Visitors encounter the extinct moa bird through a humorous shadowplay animation of skeletons. Te Taiao | Nature, Te Papa, 2019

5.4 Visitors explore a showcase of endemic species – those found only in Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Taiao | Nature, Te Papa, 2019 79

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5.5 In the immersive Climate Converter, children discover how they can help combat climate change and create a carbon-zero Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Taiao | Nature, Te Papa, 2019

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5.6 In the immersive Nest, children marvel at the egg of an extinct moa bird. Te Taiao | Nature, Te Papa, 2019

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5.7 Children draw plants on a light table, practising close observation. Te Taiao | Nature, Te Papa, 2019

How to make ‘awe’ and ‘wonder’ The making of ‘awe’ and ‘wonder’ is a central part of making exhibitions – integral to their success or failure, and to their capacity to inspire change. For Frith Williams, Te Papa’s Head of Experience Design and Content, Te Taiao | Nature aims to move visitors from ‘awe to action’ – connect with them emotionally, develop their awareness of environmental challenges, and empower them to take action. Inspiration is as important as information in this context. At the heart of the museum is a commitment to biculturalism – a fundamental part of day-today practice. This approach is amply represented in Te Taiao | Nature. Ma-tauranga Ma-ori (Ma-ori knowledge) sits alongside science as a guide towards sustainable change. The two knowledge systems are presented as complementary and contemporary ways of understanding the world. To develop the content, Lead Ma-tauranga Curator Brad Haami worked alongside Lead Science Curator Leon Perrie and two creative Experience Developers, Jen Craddock and Ralph Upton, drawing on expertise from around the country. Exhibition makers can create wonder in different ways, large-scale specimen installations among them. Te Papa has its share of extraordinary specimens: a colossal squid, giant flightless birds, and a plethora of giant, creepy-crawly insects. These strange animals roamed Aotearoa New Zealand at the time of the first human arrivals – a land empty of mammals, covered in forest, and shaken by earthquakes. Their uniqueness is the result of Aotearoa New Zealand’s isolation from other land masses. However, to achieve true memorability, as Williams points out, it’s not enough to present static displays. Social visitors – those who come with others, including families – make up 80% of Te Papa’s audience, and for this group, social opportunities, hands-on interaction, and immersion are key to an inspiring experience. Immersion features throughout the galleries, including a nest in which visitors participate in creating the soundscape, and gesture-based interactives. Williams notes that long-term memorability and learning are closely linked to physical experiences. One of the ‘big hits’, or ‘wow’ experiences, is the Earthquake House – a quake simulation that

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involves visitors in dropping, covering, and holding. Climate Converter is a virtual, immersive world activated by gestures: visitors raise their arms to trigger community-based climatechange solutions, like more windmills, more public transport, and low-gas cows. To ‘win’ this game is to reach carbon zero. This is a hopeful world in which Aotearoa New Zealand takes action to combat climate change, limiting drought and sea-level rise. Visitors can also record personal pledges to help in the quest, like walking to school more or eating less meat, and can receive an email that helps them put that pledge into action. Crowd-sourced videos show how volunteer groups are helping to conserve the environment – for example, by cleaning up streams – and a website invites visitors to volunteer for activities where they live. As Frith Williams points out, the evidence points so squarely towards the reality of climate change that the exhibition makes no attempt to represent climate-change denial. Instead, it explores the scientific research that tells us climate change is happening – the interpretation and the science are aligned. There are limits as to how much wilful ignorance of that science can be countered. Te Papa is conscious that in a post Covid-19 world, audience expectations and concerns may have shifted, and they’re ready to adapt in response, for example, by supporting safe physical interaction and developing the online experience. Within that, the museum’s role remains the same: to be a forum for the nation to explore its identity, and inspire wonder, curiosity, and learning. Perhaps more than anything, the Covid-19 crisis has made it clear that scholarly enquiry and scientific evidence are more important than ever, and must remain at the heart of the museum’s work.

Scenography

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Life is one of the two permanent exhibitions designed by Kossman de Jong (KDJ) for the renovated Naturalis Biodiversity Center. For co-founder Herman Kossman, the gallery is a way to create a real celebration of animal life and diversity. ‘[I]t starts with engagement. That’s the first thing we have to do . . . we want families to say, “Wow, this is so exciting and special.”’1 The aim is to inspire visitors with the physicality of animals, arranged as if they are at play. This exhibition is a moment of wonder. It asks us to think of animals as physical beings, not as photographs on a screen. ‘We made it into a kind of labyrinth where you become part of the scenography . . . but it was important to put the humans, as much as possible, on the same level as the animals . . . the message is that we are part of the animal kingdom . . . that people are connected to nature.’2

Who is the visitor?

The angle, direction and elevation of visitors is significant in the design of exhibitions. The framing of the viewpoint is also key. Are you glimpsing through an aperture, a microscope, entering a grand vista or standing in darkness and peering at a scene being enacted? The exhibition frames your perspective and assigns you an identity as the spy, the investigator, the supplicant, the witness or chief. The height of the viewer in relation to the exhibits is significant. Are you looking from below like a child, with everything towering above you? Are you given a giant’s perspective, like Gulliver looking down on Lilliput – a powerful figure with the exhibits like ants below you?

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5.8 A journey that takes you ‘upwards, from the bottom of the deep sea to high up into the clouds.’ Kossmann De Jong, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, NL, 2019

5.9 In Life exhibition, ‘you realize how beautiful, varied and vulnerable nature can be. And that we ourselves are an inseparable part of it.’ Kossmann De Jong, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, NL, 2019

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5.10 The Life exhibition features ‘a great contrast between large and small, and shape and color. Synchronized light, sound and film bring everything to life.’ Kossmann De Jong, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, NL, 2019

5.11 Beautifully lit scenes make you look at death in a new way in the Death exhibition as a heron chokes to death on a fish stuck in its beak. Kossmann De Jong, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, NL, 2019

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5.12 Visitors enter a circular space at the heart of the maze of exhibits to watch a compelling film that shows an annual cycle of life. Kossmann De Jong, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, NL, 2019

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5.13 A gorilla contemplates its own mortality in the Death exhibition. Kossmann De Jong, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, NL, 2019

5.14 Death is portrayed as a maze to wander through. Visitors encounter a deer hit by a car. Kossmann De Jong, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, NL, 2019

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The journey takes you ‘upwards, from the bottom of the deep sea to high up into the clouds.’3 In terms of display technique, what is so remarkable is the closeness of humans to the animals. Specimens are usually put in showcases, protected by glass that is often an intellectual barrier as well as a physical one. By taking the animals out of the showcases and placing them so close to the visitors, KDJ create a rare engagement with animals and to communicate emotionally with the visitors.

Inspire and inform A companion exhibition also deals with the death of animals, something not normally associated with natural history displays, but again, Naturalis and KDJ wanted to show ‘connection’, that death is an ‘inevitable part of life of the cycle of life.’4 The designers succeeded in making something poetic but also accessible to children. Visitors walk around a series of perforated metal panels. Through each different hole they see ‘a quiet, intimate and beautifully lit scene that makes you look at death in a new way.’ A heron chokes on a fish stuck in its beak while a gorilla looks his own skeleton in the eye. This exhibition shows that ‘death is all around us, all the time.’5 For Naturalis the KDJ exhibition is a departure. Their adage, ‘Inspire first, then inform’ is key to the success of this project. The exhibition aims to create a feeling of wonder. If you can inspire wonder, there is an appetite for learning about biodiversity. It asks the visitor to wonder at nature, and if they think it is worthwhile, then to preserve and conserve it. Lessons, hard facts and calls to action are secondary to the task of creating motivation.

Weird, wonderful and downright creepy

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As with all of their work, KDJ’s Micropia project is an essay in inspiring wonder. Micropia bills itself as ‘the only Museum of Microbes.’ It delights in the weird, wonderful and downright creepy. A museum for our time, it describes the organisms that we cannot do without, but which make us sick and bring us back to health. The museum introduces the extraordinary world of paramecium, extremophiles, leafcutter ants, water bears and of course, lots of viruses. Barely anyone after the Covid-19 virus, Ebola, Sars and other epidemics is unaware of the destructive potential of bacteria and viruses. This museum in central Amsterdam has a dual purpose though, not only to create public awareness of microbiology but also to inspire a new generation of schoolchildren who will train to become professionals. More than ever it seems this is an area of critical public interest and government investment. More than three centuries after Dutch scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek became the first person to glimpse a microorganism, Micropia reveals their secrets in a museum setting. The design approach is powerful, direct, highly visual and highly interactive. All lighting emanates from the displays themselves, bathing the visitors in a swimming pool-like ambience. Microbes wriggle and dart all around you. ‘The only light in Micropia comes from the exhibited objects. It’s an inverse laboratory: not white and sterile but dark and mysterious. All eyes are automatically on the microbes,’ is KDJ’s description of the experience.6 The feeling of being in a living body is pervasive as colour-saturated displays reveal the secrets of the very small. Micropia shows living bacteria everywhere, moving and changing.

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Humanizing science KDJ want to ‘humanize’ science. Visitors can discover how ‘many bacteria you exchange with a French kiss.’ On a life-size screen you can see, how many microbes ‘live with you.’ The everyday life of microbes is everywhere; on a toothbrush, a mobile phone and on your body. The visitor experience is a highly interactive journey: in one place you scan your body for microbes, in another, you calibrate an electron microscope to see even deeper into the unknown. The aim is after your visit, ‘you will probably never look at yourself and the world in the same way’ says Michel de Vaan, chief designer. Sound designer Peter Flamman was instrumental in creating a key connective experiential element. There are no obvious ways of attributing sound to microbes, but a subtle and abstract sound design scheme provides an essential element that connects the story. 5.15 Micropia is located in a zoo, and shows how real, living microbes move and change. Its aim is to make the ‘invisible visible’. Kossmann De Jong, Amsterdam Royal Zoo, NL, 2014

5.16 At Micropia, visitors learn how many bacteria they pass on through ‘French kissing’. Kossmann De Jong, Amsterdam Royal Zoo, NL, 2014

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5.17 A window into a real laboratory shows how the centre is a place for biological research. Kossman De Jong, Amsterdam Royal Zoo, NL, 2014

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5.18 An ‘inverse laboratory’, the exhibition is not white and sterile but dark and mysterious. The only light in Micropia comes from the exhibited objects. Kossman De Jong, Amsterdam Royal Zoo, NL, 2014

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5.19 Visitors are bathed in a swimming pool-like ambience. Microbes wriggle and dart all around you. Kossman De Jong, Amsterdam Royal Zoo, NL, 2014

5.20 DNA is portrayed as the ‘Tree of Life’ whose combinations are endlessly diverse but made from the same building blocks. Kossman De Jong, Amsterdam Royal Zoo, NL, 2014

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5.21 Visitors peer through microscopes to analyze tiny organisms. Kossman De Jong, Amsterdam Royal Zoo, NL, 2014

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KDJ credit a highly collaborative approach, or ‘being on an adventure together’ as Mark de Jong says. All aspects of the making of the exhibition were highly collaborative and the success of Micropia as a visitor experience is credited to the partnerships between interpretation, curation, science, design, interactivity, fabrication and project management. ‘It was a huge challenge,’ they admitted, ‘but it paid off.’7 They felt that there were many risks in their approach, but credit goes to all of the exhibition makers who were determined to make ‘the invisible visible.’ Ahmed Salim is a British social entrepreneur and producer of international exhibitions, films, live shows, books and social campaigns. Co-founder of 1001 Inventions, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of Arabic science, he has touched the lives of people around the world. Over 400 million people have experienced a 1001 Inventions production through media, exhibitions, live shows, books and campaigns. Salim is a man in a hurry. His mission is to bring to the world the story of a Golden Age of discoveries from the 7th century onwards. These breakthroughs, made by men and women of different faiths and cultures in the Arab world, have left their mark everywhere. Sciences such as mathematics, optics and astronomy owe a huge debt to Golden Age pioneers and are foundational to much of the science we know today. A narrative that has critical relevance to people everywhere but also to the self-perception of people in the Arab world or those of

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5.22 Children interacting with hands on and interactive exhibits. 1001 Inventions, Michigan Science Center, US, 2018

5.23 Oscar winning actor Ben Kingsley as 12th century scholar Al-Jazari in the exhibition’s introductory film 1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets. 1001 Inventions, Michigan Science Center, US, 2018

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Arab heritage. In 2015 and 2019, UNESCO recognized 1001 Inventions as a partner in global initiatives, further cementing the position of 1001 as a global leader in social entrepreneurship. Salim’s own background as the only non-white pupil at a Catholic school in the Northwest of England is the surprising backdrop to this extraordinary story. Years later, he recalls how he told his maths class the origins of Algebra in the Arab world, recalling the feeling of pride in his own roots that this episode gave him. Forced to protect himself from bullying at school, he had learnt martial arts. He had no defense, however, against the superiority complex of his peers, and it was through speaking about the Golden Age pioneers that he was able to feel pride in his own culture.

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5.24 3D reproduction of Al-Jazari’s 12th century Elephant Clock. 1001 Inventions

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5.25 Elephant Clock described in Al-Jazari’s 12th century manuscript. 1001 Inventions

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The secret to the success of 1001 Inventions is deeply rooted in the Golden Age story. As Salim recalls, the story was ‘like a CV, it told people who I am.’8 For the other co-founders of 1001 Inventions, ‘they were professors at Universities, this story only reached their students, this (1001 Inventions) was about taking the story further.’9 At the beginning, 1001 Inventions was purely an awareness campaign. Salim and his colleagues made posters which the Manchester (UK) Science and Industry Museum agreed to put in their galleries. Having made the posters, it seemed inadequate and they said to themselves, ‘we are going to talk about these things (the Golden Age), we should have some objects (for display). There was an evolution of possibilities.’10 But there were also problems. The story of 1001’s success is a testament to huge determination. ‘Along the way, there were 1001 obstacles. Essentially it’s about how you overcome those obstacles and what does it take to evolve.’11 The organization wanted to publish a booklet, and as it grew they realized that enough material to make a book. This was sent, finally, to 36 publishers, all of whom rejected it for publication. Initially, they self-published until National Geographic took it on. It has since been distributed to over 2 million people worldwide.

Overcoming challenges For next steps, 1001 asked themselves, ‘How can we raise the bar and how can we find ways around the challenges? . . . We found that our passion had been contagious. And we managed to get people to give us a chance . . . One of the guiding principles was that we would refuse to do any small exhibitions until about 2015, (we decided to) mainly focus on one exhibition around the world even though we were getting requests from smaller venues.’12 They turned down ‘hundreds’ of venues because they could not accommodate the 1200 square metres which was the minimum for the touring exhibition. Salim felt that to dilute the experience or divide it into smaller parts would be a mistake, and he negotiated hard with venues. The outcome was an extraordinary success, leading to major exhibitions in prestige venues around the world including London’s Science Museum, the New York Hall of Science, Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Square, the California Science Center and 55 other venues, an extraordinary achievement. What has been the key to the success of 1001 Inventions? Salim puts it down to a few things. When they are attracting visitors to exhibitions, he says that there are some rules that they follow in their campaigns. For most people, he says,

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To do science, it must be very difficult to understand . . . equations and chemical formulas and physics, it is just a scary thing for the most of the population. The top line narrative needs to be something that appeals to you. If you do something boring, people will not respond to that. If you create something that looks very magical, they give you a second look or might become more interested in your promotion. If they see something . . . let’s say you have a celebrity, we managed to get Ben Kingsley and Omar Sherif, when you have a name that is known, it helps, people are very quick to discount something. It’s like Instagram, scrolling down, (users) are programmed to just discount something in a split-second. The first challenge is how you become relevant in a society that is bombarded with media. The second challenge is how you humanize the story. So we’ve always tried to humanize and focus on the people behind the science and that has always been very rewarding to us. For example, we talk about the story of Ibn Al-Haytham. He was the chief scientist on the biggest project (the Aswan Dam) in the world at that time (c. 965-1040 AD) and he was thrown in jail.13 Salim goes on to say that it is this kind of story that can really galvanize people and inspire them. Ibn Al-Haytham was someone who held a really high position in the world but was

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imprisoned in his own house. Trapped and unable to leave, he went on to lay the groundwork for the modern science of optics. It is this kind of story that Salim values because it leads to something that is rewarding to the visitor, learning about achievements. It also speaks to the curiosity of the scientist and also his inventiveness in adversity. It leads to a ‘call to action’ to the visitor and asks what can I do myself? 1001 Inventions has used this approach to tell a great number of stories, and continues to develop new content. As Salim points out, he and the team have enough material and research for 20 more years of work, making books, exhibitions, websites, events and other activities. Recent productions include the invention of hospitals, women in the Golden Age, universities, mechanical devices of the Golden Age, medicine, the birth of Modern Astronomy, map-making, distillation, architecture and town planning to name but a few. 1001 Inventions work with very few objects for display and interpretation. The Golden Age is in the distant past and evidence for discoveries is fragmentary, and is difficult to interpret for the target audiences. As Salim points out, ‘we only have bits of manuscripts, most of the manuscripts are hidden away in archives, or have disappeared. We have to rely on someone’s copy of the original. Our storytelling devices we have to make ourselves.’14 But Salim is adamant that lack of original artefacts does not entail lack of accuracy. He points to a delay of a year in the production of the Ibn Al-Haytham animation due to an academic dispute over the facts of Al-Haytham’s story which had to be resolved, before the final production could be finished.

Three-dimensional exhibits

Exhibitions are often crafted to create their strongest impressions around imposing or visually stimulating three-dimensional exhibits or structures. These draw the eye and are usually the first thing that people head for in the exhibition. It is when looking at these that visitors gain the strongest impressions, and it is usually only after they are drawn to them that they start to look around at graphic panels or labels to construct a narrative about what they are seeing. Quite often, the take-away moments of the exhibition, what visitors perceive, is associated in some way with these kinds of exhibits.

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5.26 Large-scale translucent banners suspended over an escalator create drama and surprise. Studio Eger, Royal Opera House, UK, 2018

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Keys to success Asked for the key to some of the successes of 1001 Inventions, Salim points to their cultural approach. Whenever possible, in an event or exhibition in a new town or city, they will try to tell the story of a local hero. It is important to 1001 to recognize heroes from all communities and the organization is at its core non-religious. Salim emphasizes the need to avoid any kind of bias. Some of the contributors are atheist, he notes, and there is no religious agenda being advanced. He also makes clear the independence of 1001 Inventions. They reject donations and remain resolutely resistant to national as well as religious agendas. I press Salim further to ask how 1001 has continued to be so successful. When he speaks about global reach and huge audiences, the desire he has to communicate his message and his stories becomes apparent. He says, that whatever our national differences, the story of 1001 should be on the table of every family. His drive to make sure this happens will not be compromised by national agendas. When asked to exhibit in one country but to shun another, he refuses. No matter who is in government, he believes that every family should benefit from 1001 Inventions. In terms of impact, the ability of 1001 to use a wide range of media, to publish books, create web-based material, make exhibitions and to stage live events means that they can get the attention not only of visitors, but also attract high-level support and participation. As Salim remarks, ‘I always see the final result as a transmedia strategy. Like everything, it works together. So the film helps the exhibition, the exhibition helps the book. The book helps the materials in the schools, and the live shows. And so essentially, these media work independently, but when you bring them all together, they have a much bigger impact.’15

Consistency

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The visitor learns how to use the graphic system at the beginning of the gallery. Visitors notice how headings are mounted at a particular height, story panels and labels are mounted at another. In subsequent spaces, the visitor knows where to look when they are seeking information, and the consistency is calming. They can concentrate their attention on the subject of the exhibition. They do not need to make an effort to search for graphic panels in different places and decode contrasting fonts or script styles.

1001 Inventions use the stories of Golden Age scientists to change a narrative about science in the Arab world and an easy assumption that science is purely a western phenomenon. The story is as important as the physical experience. At the heart of 1001’s achievement is a communication that scientists of old have looked and wondered at the stars – looking out and beyond the circumstances of the day-to-day. And that wondering, looking at the stars, and speculating about their movement and our place in relation to them, is something that you can do today. By putting wonder at heart of the 1001 Inventions, children are encouraged to do something that most children naturally do, to look beyond.

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Reverential respect ‘mixed with fear or wonder’

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The preceding examples have a number of shared characteristics. When these exhibitions are talked about, the word ‘awe’ is used often. In this chapter, I try to understand what that means and how and why is it something that is desirable. A dictionary definition of ‘awe’ is instructive: ‘a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.’16 It is interesting that both fear and wonder are mentioned here. In the world of museums, people often talk about making things that are familiar and relatable. We see that the stock in trade of the museum is also the bizarre and wondrous – things that make you feel scared. Something that is potent and grabs attention in a way that is an opportunity for exhibition makers. Dinosaurs are scary. They were also destructive, which in itself is part of their appeal. They haunt children’s imaginations and make them think about extinct worlds. They are the stuff of nightmares as well as an important introduction to understanding extinction, geological timescales and the place of humans on the planet. The opportunity to see them for real, up close, is also to bridge across over 66 million years since most became extinct and that still feels like an important privilege for many children. Parents are satisfied that they have fulfilled a parental duty when they can say that their children have ‘seen the dinosaurs’ – an acknowledgement that seeing them in person is a far different experience than seeing them in books or online. There are also stunning things to experience in exhibitions, both natural and artificial, that have long been a source of wonder. The economy of form and movement in nature, the sleekness and sparseness of aerodynamically designed aeroplanes, the rhythm of repeated forms found in plants, symmetry: the extraordinary colours and forms found in museums have long been a source of wonder, not only for the aesthetic hold they have on us, but also as a source of speculation about their relationship to mathematics and to scientific laws. In addition to the aesthetic properties of things in museums, there is a more interesting question: why do we want to be close to them? What is the difference between seeing things in a book as compared to seeing them up close, and how can exhibition teams build wondrous experiences? The making of ‘awe’ and ‘wonder’ is no easy business. It requires something more than just gimmicks and tricks. Awe and wonder are related to stories, but they also have a physical dimension. The scale of space rockets, the enormous vertebrae of a Tyrannosaurus rex, the size of an elephant are the mainstay of many museums. There is something about spatial relationships, the emphasis of scale, that creates both a physical and a mental space for wonder and imagination. Exhibition centres are often large. Vast galleries like the enormous aircraft hangars of the Washington Air and Space Museum are hugely popular. But former power plants such as the Tate Modern in London, bus stations such as the Russian Jewish Museum in Moscow and the grain silos of the Zeitz MOCAA building in Cape Town (SA) can also make excellent exhibition spaces forming a backdrop for the extraordinary and the mind-expanding.

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The physicality of using the whole body to look up, down, to move around, seeing from above, below, and through things is part of the wonder experience. The design of the approach to an exhibit is integral to this. Designers and architects work on creating an appropriate encounter through the design of lighting, sound and form-making and all the tools at their command. As in film, designers have the opportunity to provide viewpoints. Exhibitions are self-guided, and the viewing angles unlike film are approximate. Visitors will find their own way within your parameters. Yet designers do have some control. As in film, storyboarding in exhibitions is common, using visualizations to envisage and interrogate how the emotive ‘scenes’ of an exhibition are best sequenced. Every segment of the storyboard considers the viewpoint of the visitor. Are you looking through a microscope like a microbiologist, or walking between the legs of a giant dinosaur whose body looms over you? Are you peering at exhibits like a detective, who is seeking clues to a mystery or part of an ongoing investigation? Or is your exhibition implicitly democratic, the visitor empowered to interrogate, question and to express their opinions? To hear the sounds of a large space with its different reverberations and echoes is also a part. As is focusing, for which lighting design is critical. In complete darkness or in very high ambient light conditions, everything has equal value. The ability to make an object precious or simply to relegate it to the background is the choice of the designer. The design gives accent and tone to elements of the story, and in itself is a storytelling device. Lighting can also simulate real world conditions such as the dappled light of a forest as in the Life exhibition earlier, or the unique colours of the micro-organisms seen in Micropia. No doubt the enormous fulfilment warehouses built by internet shopping giants can also one day become popular galleries and museums. As 1001 Inventions demonstrates, scale and volume of display space is often critical to success. There are, of course, plenty of successful exhibitions in small galleries, but those exhibitions which rely on the fantastical often need large spaces to lift them out of the ordinary. Large spaces allow a particular type of contextualization and allow people to see what they cannot see at home through a Virtual Reality headset. If you want to see biodiversity on a planetary scale, or to see an elephant, my ideal museum will provide that experience. It will help you to see the larger view, the macro as well as the micro. But it also links global situations with calls to action on the ground. As Kossman de Jong have also shown, it is important to inspire, and then inform. To create exhibitions that serve any kind of agenda such as a response to climate change it is imperative to first create a sense of awe. Calls to action are only effective when people are aware of and care for something enough to want to protect it.

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Fun

As we have seen, particularly with 1001 Inventions, the making of successful museum experiences is partly about communicating the excitement of a subject; that going to an exhibition is a thing that is worth doing. Fun and entertainment generally are very tricky things to talk about among exhibition makers, and perhaps why that awkward conversation is interesting. Interpretive planner Ben Gammon asks, ‘what would be worse? For a child, after seeing an exhibition, to get a fundamental fact about science wrong? Or to come away from an exhibition bored?’ He argues, that if you are turned off and come away from an exhibition feeling bored, you may never want to return to the topic – perhaps ever. If you have a fact wrong, but came away feeling excited and you had fun, you have a new interest to explore and the motivation to revisit a place and a topic. Who could argue that boring exhibitions are likely to bring people back? Exhibition makers talk about ‘engagement’ as a holy grail (as do I). But there is a degree of excitement, playfulness, sometimes silliness, and hyperactivity particularly for kids which is different than engagement. I think we have all seen it, and hopefully experienced it, and for children it usually involves red cheeks and a high noise level. A lot of people seriously question if that is needed in museums. Yet, particularly since interactivity has been added to the repertoire of exhibitions, fun activities have been increasingly found in museums. Some, but not all, have serious educational intent. Where they are successful, they have made an enormous difference to visitor numbers and the general popularity of exhibitions. For people who live in a museum bubble and whose friends, relatives and extended acquaintances go to museums, it is sobering to read surveys of non-attenders (people who

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5.27 The Fog Bridge is both an artwork and a fun exhibit. Children run up and down, dodging through the mist. Fujiko Nakaya, Fog Bridge, 2013 Gayle Laird (photo), © Exploratorium, www .exploratorium.edu

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5.28 The Prism Tree enables visitors to play with lenses and observe the different spectra of light from various lighting fixtures. Prism Tree Exhibit, Exploratorium

don’t go to museums). As a survey found in Derby, UK, for substantial parts of potential audiences, especially where there is no interactive offer, it would not enter their heads to go to a museum. Lots of reasons are cited by the missing audiences, ‘do not have time’, ‘their children would not want to go’, ‘relevance’ or not being part of the ‘fabric’ of what they do. There was a perception that museums were not places of ‘fun’ or for people ‘like them’. Leaving aside some relevant factors such as the price of snacks in the café, it is clear that the museum service was not providing for a significant segment of Derby’s local population. Derby is not being singled out here, as Derby has at least highlighted some significant issues which the museum service is trying to address. Lack of ‘fun’ and an intolerance of ‘noisy children’ were mentioned explicitly. Also:

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References to visiting museums hark back to experiences of going ‘when they were at school’, with them broadly seen as boring, behind the times, static – somewhere to go once and for ‘quiet people’ and therefore not a good fit with this particularly familyfocused audience.17 These audience segments were interested though in theme park attractions. The lack of ‘interactive’ experiences was part of the rejection of the Derby museums offer. Exhibition makers have for years now tried to address fun activities. Te Taio | Nature included a revamped ‘earthquake’ simulator in their new exhibition, and the same simulator had been a feature of the exhibition that Te Taio replaced. Generations of kids of have been thrown around the earthquake room in the Natural History Museum in the UK in a similar way. Kossman de Jong’s Micropia offers an analysis of the microbes that are exchanged during French kissing. Their Humania exhibit, ‘Stimulate your brain’, encourages you to dive through some soft cushions to better understand what parts of the brain are stimulated by types of movement. This is not just fun, there is educational value too. But in a world where museums are fighting for market share with themed attractions, it also provides something that children need, and which can broaden the museum’s audience among traditional non-attenders.

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So what does fun mean in terms of the exhibition? What activities do people enjoy? Of course, there is no exhaustive list, but there are some common strands: discovery and openendedness. It is difficult for people to find fun in something which appears ‘closed’. That is, where all of the answers are known, and you as the visitor are being instructed by a didactic museum authority. People like to try things out for themselves and draw their own conclusions, they don’t like being told things. As one of the respondents to the Derby Museums survey said, they dislike experiences where it ‘feels a bit like being in school.’ There is a difference between a didactic exhibition where the museum is telling you that something is important to being given the tools to explore it yourself and make your own discoveries. For exhibition makers that is both an opportunity and a burden. Giving freedom to children means allowing them to be more physical and to play more loudly and more boisterously. But that comes with the territory when you encourage freedom. There is no guarantee that your visitors will behave either responsibly or well, and exhibitions have to prepare their exhibits well in order to avoid permanent damage that might cause interactives to be out of order while on display. Successful exhibitions offer the freedom to allow children to be noisy and not too selfconscious when they are playful. Offering novelty is important. Few people are captivated by seeing things that they have seen before. To continually provide new things, and new offers at high quality can be complicated for museums with low budgets. But that is what may be required by the non-attenders who are wary of seeing ‘the same old stuff’. It is in the fertile area of discovery, open-endedness, interactivity and amusement that science interactives have found a place. In many ways, interactives are a bit like the oldfashioned fairground games where you play, compete, marvel and generally mess about and have fun. They are tapping into a successful and well-understood area of human behavior. But there is more to the introduction of interactives and gaming into the museum environment than simply having fun with friends and family.

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5.29 Making fun and engaging exhibits in the early days of the Exploratorium, Balancing Ball Exhibit, Exploratorium

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Interactivity has, in some ways, been the salvation of the exhibition format through educational outcomes as well as popular success with visitors. One interesting aspect of many interactives, particularly physical interactives, is that they do not rely on new technology in any way. Many could have been manufactured over a century ago. What has changed is the observation of visitor behavior by exhibition developers and the continued incremental improvement of interactive devices in pursuit of educational goals and in response to observation. The Exploratorium, one of the leaders of this movement, have given this kind of development some useful labels. They classify interactives from the simple Planned Discovery, a relatively prescriptive type of interaction, to the more sophisticated and creative form of interaction they call APE (Active Prolonged Engagement). Planned Discovery (PD) is where the visitor explores a prescribed scientific phenomenon through an interactive. In this instance, the goal is known, the visitors’ task is simply to correctly carry out an interactive experience so as to confirm that the phenomenon exists. Planned Discovery, presents natural phenomena as ‘accessible, manipulable and understandable.’ With APE, instruction and explanation is minimized. The scientific principles of observation, speculation and experimentation are maximized with the goal of ‘prolonged engagement’. Essentially, the authority is given to the visitor to make up their own experiments and to have fun doing things their own way. APE ‘plant(s) authority for the experiences with the visitors’18 and encourages them to explore more freely, not looking constantly to try to replicate some activity prescribed by the institution. As the Exploratorium acknowledges, the trick to doing this well is a complex of different factors, all of which are painstaking trialled and prototyped. It is relatively easy to attract people to interact with something superficially interesting, but sustaining attention is harder. Finding a form of interactive that does both is more difficult but important. Also, by trying to create the conditions for visitors to author and devise their own activities, there is the danger

5.30 Buckyball is an illuminated sculpture of the Fullerene molecule erected outside the Exploratorium in San Franciso. Leo Villareal, BuckyBall, Exploratorium

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5.31 Even the most inhibited people respond to this interactive artwork. Cameras track the outline of the human body, and allow visitors to fluidly create their image on a screen. Ed Tannebaum, Recollections, Exploratorium

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that they will be frustrated by the lack of clear direction. Making a successful APE interactive requires a balance between these factors. The key to success is the constant tweaking of the experience through observation of visitor behavior, often recorded on videotape. Watching visitors interact, they make constant adjustments to wring every ounce of experiential benefit from the whole package including the interactive devices, any labelling and the text and even the view afforded to non-participants who are gazing on. Of course, there are always new ways of further improving the offer, but new developers are able to build on the experience of past developers and developments. The great advantage of these kind of interactives is that they are built on universal principles of science as well as near universal principles of human behavior. What works for the children of California works equally well with only minor adaptations for the children of the United Arab Emirates, Poland or Hong Kong. The ability to build on past successful prototypes and continued iterative innovation has led to an increased capacity to produce and make interactives in centres around the world, providing off-the-shelf products that have proved highly successful as governments look to promote science and technology. The publication of cookbooks and manuals about such developments is one of the benefits that have grown from this sector. New science centres are not obliged to buy pre-designed interactives out of a box, although they are available. They can design their own taking the principles from past innovators, or they can simply use one of the ‘cookbooks’ to imitate existing models. The power of the ideas propagated by science centres is much stronger than

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any particular design. And the fascination with making and designing new interactives is as strong as ever. What is the relevance of interactivity to awe and wonder? The aim of an APE exhibit is to generate specific kinds of visitor-driven behaviour, including questioning that generates exploratory activity, critical and uncritical observing, investigating along branching paths, collaborating with other visitors, and searching for and reflecting upon casual explanations for exhibit phenomena.19 Natural phenomena become something that can be touched, played with and enjoyed. Not only is this attractive, but also it can be replicated, improved upon iteratively and deployed as new prototypes become available. Success has led to the global adoption of the sciencecentre interactive as a gateway to science and technology for many millions of children with a commitment by governments to install science centres regionally and locally. These successful examples also show a level of artistry that is more than purely a subset of art or a genre. The hands-on interactive movement continues to innovate and produce new ways to wonder at natural phenomena in ways that appeal to the non-attenders and offers the hope of bringing new audiences.

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6

Truth

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A raging dispute

It has not escaped anyone’s attention that there is a dispute raging about truth. The internet, so recently thought to be benign, like a hyperactive but kindly librarian, has lost its sheen. Deceptions devised by competing governments and malicious interests are an acknowledged part of our daily lives through social media posting. It is in this context that we think about exhibitions. So static, so staid and so slow to react to new events, how can museums respond to the question of truth and authenticity? In this chapter, we see Forensic Architecture respond to the challenge of false and misleading accounts. Forensic show how new (mainly digital) sources of information and evidence can be used to examine misleading narratives about violent incidents often propagated by governments. We also see how new tools are available to examine evidence, using what some practitioners call the ‘superpowers’. These are digital investigation tools that are increasingly being used by journalists, crime investigators and archaeologists to reveal evidence about the past, often invisible to the naked eye. This chapter looks at some of these technologies and the influence they might have on the exhibition environment. This leads to discussion of how these new types of ‘evidence’ can be used to support evidencebased exhibition making but also how some digital methods can be manipulated to make ‘fakes’ – yet also bring some extraordinary archaeological stories to light. As a by-product of the power of new digital technologies, we also ponder how future audiences can develop the skills to question the presentation of ‘facts’ and take an active role in seeking new answers.

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Reconstructing events

In 2017, jurists short-listed Forensic Architecture, a group of researchers, architects, acousticians, film-makers, photographers and scientists, for the Turner Prize, the UK’s premier annual art prize at London’s Tate Britain gallery. There is nothing conventional about the choice of Forensic Architecture, who are not artists in the traditional sense. Their mission is to uncover state violence around the world and reveal wrongdoing through lectures, websites and exhibitions. Their recent projects in Syria, Israel, Turkey, the US and now the UK were intended to highlight state cover-ups. They call nations to account for crimes such as extra-judicial killings concealed by misleading public statements. Trained as an architect, Forensic Architecture’s founder, Eyal Weizman, uses a unique research methodology to examine political crimes concealed by state media. Using thousands of photographs, social media clips and countless other sources, Forensic Architecture build up a picture of a crime. Topographic and architectural data is used to re-create and record the scene. A painful process of cross-referencing and checking ensues until the truth about the unfolding events is found. The truth, with an enormous file of corroborating evidence, is Forensic Architecture’s ‘art’.

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6.1 On 7 April 2018, the city of Douma, Syria, was targeted by two chemical weapons attacks. At that time, the city and its surrounding areas had been under siege by the Syrian military since 2013. At least 70 people died in the attacks, according to reports. Forensic Architecture

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Reconstructing events

6.2 Meticulous reconstructions of an attack on a Syrian town enabled Forensic Architecture to examine evidence. Forensic Architecture

6.3 Forensic use 3D modelling to re-create the physical conditions of the scene and to make informed judgements about the identity of the perpetrators and the truth of Syrian Government statements. Forensic Architecture

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Immersive spaces, satellite images and terrain models The impact of the reconstruction is profound. At their Tate gallery exhibition, a video was played which recorded the sounds of a brutal incident in the Occupied Territories in the West Bank. Projected on the walls, the incident footage is enhanced to show what happens when a young Bedouin teacher is shot in the dark of night by police. The teacher’s car runs out of control down an incline, as the injured teacher lies slumped on the wheel. The car finally strikes and kills a police officer, who it is later claimed by the state to be a victim of a terrorist attack. The video and a timeline of the incident show what happened. 1 Newspapers report the claim that the young teacher was a ‘terrorist’ until the contradicting evidence is shown. The visitor feels like they are replaying the event. The exhaustive research

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6.4 Reporters from RT and TV Zvezda quickly claimed that the attacks had been staged, and that the canisters had been carried into place by the rebels, rather than dropped from regime-controlled airspace above the city. Forensic Architecture

6.5 Forensic’s analysis supported their assessment that the canisters were dropped from the air. Images and sound recording analysis revealed further evidence. Forensic Architecture

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moves the search for evidence and the exposure of state denials to another level. The state has lied, and the public exposure of state attempts to wrestle with the exposure of the lie is played out across the walls of the gallery. Denials, evasions, shifts in position are there for all to see. Visitors inspect news arranged to show a timeline of events. Three-dimensional terrain models show the positions and routes taken by the participants in the tragedy. The data used by Forensic Architecture are from every possible source. As Weizman explains, the state tries to construct its case around state-owned media sources and object-based evidence which it keeps locked away in case of a trial. Forensic’s approach uses ‘citizenjournalists’ with their camera phones and images shared on social media. This process illustrates powerfully how Forensic’s techniques can bear witness even to events which take place at night and in darkness.

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Reconstructing events

The first area of the exhibition space is an immersive environment with images of the scene shot in darkness but exposed using night-vision technology. This environment is supplemented with a wall-hung timeline of events, with newspaper headlines recording the claims and, later on, the retractions of the Israeli government. A table holds a three-dimensional terrain model with lines drawn showing the routes taken by the police and the teacher that evening. On the wall, there are tiled satellite images of the whole area. The completeness of the information is striking. Forensic Architecture have taken no short cuts, and the evidence is compelling. What is also immediately striking about this exhibition, is that the recordings taken at the time of the incident show very little. Only later was the real story revealed through painstaking evidence-gathering from multiple sources. The investigators were geographically remote from the events, but their investigations frequently used publicly available sources. The perpetrators thought their cover-up would never be discovered. The pursuit of truth was a reconstructive activity. The scene of the crime was modelled using software. Open-source satellite data, camera-phone recordings and traditional archive material such as newspaper reports were also used. In the exhibition, the visitor becomes a witness to a crime, the evidence being a threedimensional virtual model constructed digitally by the investigators. The investigative material featured both macro overviews and immersive in-the-moment experiences made available through reconstruction.

Can web material get lost? Jim Boulton, web archaeologist, replies.

‘Getting the machines working and downgrading them to the software, the operating systems and browsers of the time I thought would be difficult. But that was the easier part. But actually, I found out that people hadn’t got the code. And the code on the Internet Archive wasn’t complete. There were broken links, missing pages and missing images. 80% of the the code is there, but not all of it. And anything behind passwords isn’t captured. And that’s when I started thinking about it a bit more, and realized that the early days of the web are in danger of being lost.”2

Analysis and reconstruction

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It is the ability to analyze, reconstruct and create digital and virtual worlds that makes these new tools so revolutionary. They also offer opportunities for their makers to work together inside the virtual world using Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality as tools to re-imagine and analyze events and histories. It is with this lens that an area of examination and potential experience-making has opened up. As a gallery experience it is uniquely powerful, and it turns the gallery into a courtroom where the visitor is the judge. No doubt evidence will always be disputed, but it feels here that Forensic have struck a blow for evidence-based investigation and exposure of the evasions and spin that are so much part of everyday media communication.

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Superpowers

As they investigate and gather evidence, Forensic Architecture are using new tools developed by scientists and engineers. These means which allow us to re-examine our planet are yielding extraordinary results, described by some practitioners as ‘a kind of a digital superpower.’3 Those superpowers are types of digital analysis that have had remarkable and history-changing results. Through these superpowers, investigators’ and archaeologists’ understanding of modern and ancient archaeology are being transformed. There is a huge opportunity for immersive experiences revealed by these superpowers – a chance to follow ongoing discoveries through the eyes of archaeologists who are seeing remarkable things for the first time. For many investigators and archaeologists, LiDAR (short for Light Detection And Ranging) has provided the kind of insight and revolution in understanding that is rare in modern science. The sudden emergence of the efficacy of the technology has deeply surprised and delighted scientists. LiDAR, laser scanning with an ability to see through vegetation (often deployed from aeroplanes) has the potential to be transformational. The data gathered by scientists is often ‘spatial data’, and will allow museums to either virtually or physically reconstruct spatial environments. This applies to ruins of temples, traces of houses, roads and fields and ancient objects as well as modern cities. Other techniques, however, are also used. As ever, every investigation is a compilation of corroborated accounts created using a number of techniques which are cross-checked. Ground penetrating radar, another superpower, also has a significant role here, allowing investigators to look below ground at buried structures. The data does not crucially help museum visitors to appreciate the actual ‘stuff’ of an exhibition by handling or close-up views of artefacts. Yet there is a remarkable opportunity to communicate and interpret scale and size of settlements in a way that was unimaginable before. This technology alongside traditional means allows both macro and micro views. Opportunities are opening up to provide the data for immersive and social environments in museum spaces. Roads, fields, pathways, canals and irrigation of previously unknown cities are suddenly visible. Ancient changes to landscape, field structure and ditches can dramatically reveal the economic life of previously unknown settlements.

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Working with cutting edge technology

While an advocate of the use of technology in the right circumstances, Dave Patten, Head of New Media at the Science Museum, London, cautions against the use of new and totally untried technologies in exhibition projects. ‘If you are working at the cutting edge of technology, it’s very hard. Lots of museums say they are but they are not. There is always a risk of failure. It’s not true that museums are working at the cutting edge of technology. When we have worked at the very edge, it has been hugely stressful and if you are unlucky, you can end up with nothing’ (Talking about the Science Museum’s use of fingerprint technology).4

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Superpowers

Discovering violent histories with the superpowers Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Genocide Investigation Caroline Sturdy Colls has accomplished an extraordinary amount of research in her short career. As director of the Centre for Archaeology at Staffordshire University, she has built a team of professionals with complementary skills to explore forensic archaeology through new data collection methods. A proponent of LiDAR, her investigations also involve ground-penetrating radar, satellite imagery, object scanning and other observations to delve into buried histories. Her research methods reveal critical facts about political violence and record histories which are concealed and partly erased. In her publications she points to attempts to destroy or build over sites. In some cases, the investigations are ‘rescue archaeology’ to enable historians to piece together information about sites of genocides. Data is available from multiple sources and researchers are able to examine both large-scale and local data. Satellite imaging enables Sturdy Colls and her co-investigators to identify areas which can be explored locally with ground-penetrating radar and LiDAR. Satellite imaging also allows historians to see remotely where sites have been disturbed and attempts made to conceal evidence of crimes. Sturdy Colls is profoundly aware of the need to disseminate her research through exhibitions and has worked with the Wiener Holocaust Library in London. The exhibition there involved both factual records and interpretations by artists. In addition, she has established relationships with the gaming department at her university. Together they are investigating ways of creating sensitive virtual experiences that will reveal hidden histories. Using gaming engines such as Unreal Engine, vast quantities of archaeological data from LiDAR, photogrammetry, geophysical data and other sources can be made into visualizations. Online sources of publicly available information are also making a contribution.

Head of New Media at the Science Museum, London, Dave Patten describes his best experiences of being in a museum

‘For me, often the best experience of a museum is when I am a taken round by a curator. They know a million stories about all of the objects and they’ll read me as a person and try to look at what I’m interested in. And tell me the stories that might excite or engage me. Some of the things we’re beginning to think about with technology, is how do you gather that, or read people in that way? That’s a massive issue. How do you use artificial intelligence and machine learning to make some of those decisions that curator might have made around the stories I’m going to present to you?’5

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Making interactive experiences with LiDAR For modern AV media designers working for exhibitions, the LiDAR superpower provides profound possibilities. Its spatialized data can create interactive user experiences which enable museum visitors to explore inaccessible sites remotely. Using immersive techniques, media designers can depict an ancient city or a town still under deep vegetation. With enough data, they would be able to roam around that city. Designed interventions in the virtual world provide interpretation of the environment by introducing graphic labels, instructions on where and how to walk, and discovery of key clues to the life of the settlement as part of the designed experience.

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6.6 The Staro Sajmište fairgrounds, following the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, became a Semlin concentration camp in 1941. Jews and Roma were systematically murdered at the site. The camp also held communists and resistance fighters. Caroline Sturdy Colls, Scanlab, Forensic Architecture, Serbia

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6.7 Years later, it was proposed that the site be transformed again, into a Holocaust memorial centre and museum. These plans, however, required the displacement of the site’s inhabitants, including the Roma communities who were themselves victims of the Nazis. Grupa Spomenik, Caroline Sturdy Colls, Scanlab, Forensic Architecture, Serbia

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6.8 Surveys were conducted of the site both above and below ground, in an attempt to protect the existing homes, and in the belief that commemoration should not necessarily contradict ongoing inhabitation. Grupa Spomenik, Caroline Sturdy Colls, Scanlab, Forensic Architecture, Serbia

Re-discovering Guatemala and Angkor Wat through LiDAR How are these new methods employed and what are the discoveries that are being claimed? They are significant. In modern day Guatemala, researchers are using LiDAR to see through the tree canopy in aerial images of the landscape. Below the tree canopy, the sprawling ruins of a pre-Columbian civilization are revealed. The urban civilization thus discovered is far more complex than any researcher could have imagined. The opportunities created are only just being revealed. Part of the excitement is that the research uses the same technology as that used to display archaeology to the visiting public. Reconstructions, LiDAR surveys and 3D models of terrain can be repurposed for making social and immersive digital experiences that visitors can explore. Thomas Garrison, an Ithaca College archaeologist funded by the Guatemalan nonprofit Pacunam, was quoted in National Geographic: ‘The LiDAR images make it clear that this entire region (or Guatemala) was a settlement system whose scale and population density had been grossly underestimated.’6 The same publication went on to report that ‘the project mapped more than 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Petén region of Guatemala, producing the largest LiDAR data set ever obtained for archaeological research. The results suggest that Central America supported an advanced civilization that was, at its peak some 1,200 years ago, more comparable to sophisticated cultures such as ancient Greece or China than to the scattered and sparsely populated city states that ground-based research had long suggested.’7 The LiDAR images also showed ‘raised highways connecting urban centres and quarries’ and that ‘complex irrigation and terracing systems supported intensive agriculture capable of feeding masses of workers.’ This discovery revolutionized the understanding of the complexity and scale of Maya civilization and dramatically changed the understanding of the importance of this region in the eyes of historians.8 Similarly in Angkor Wat, The Guardian newspaper reported that, ‘Archaeologists in Cambodia have found multiple, previously undocumented medieval cities not far from the ancient temple city of Angkor Wat. “Ground-breaking discoveries” have been made that promise to “upend key assumptions about south-east Asia’s history.” ’9

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6.9 Detailed map of the Angkor region in northwest Cambodia, showing the main coverage blocks for the 2012 and 2015 Airborne Laser (ALS) Khmer Archaeology LiDAR Consortium, Cambodian Archaeological LiDAR Initiative (CALI)

6.10 LiDAR surveys reveal cultivation, dams and earthworks near Angkor Wat. Credit: Damian Evans / Journal of Archaeological Science

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6.11 The helicopter during the 2015 flight operations, with the LiDAR instrument mounted within a pod on the right-hand skid. Francisco Goncalves (photo), CALI, 2015

The findings of Australian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans showed that airborne laser scanning technology has revealed ‘multiple cities between 900 and 1,400 years old beneath the tropical forest floor, some of which rival the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.’ The study covering 734 sq miles (1,901 sq km) shows that ‘the colossal, densely populated cities would have constituted the largest empire on earth at the time of its peak in the 12th century.’ Evans said: ‘We have entire cities discovered beneath the forest that no one knew were there – at Preah Khan of Kompong Svay and, it turns out, we uncovered only a part of Mahendraparvata on Phnom Kulen [in the 2012 survey] . . . this time we got the whole deal and it’s big, the size of Phnom Penh big.’10

Fully immersive three-dimensional digital environments

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Despite the impact of recent discoveries, Director of ScanLab Will Trossell explained to me in an interview that 3D scanning ‘is in its infancy.’11 Photography is 200 years old, but it has only been 20 years since NASA used 3D technology to scan the moon during both Apollo and Mercury missions. Over the last decade, the technology has matured. Massive improvements in computing power have given rise to relatively low-cost scanners available for commercial use. But the potential has yet to be realized in exhibitions. As pioneering AV media designers ISO Design point out, the computer processing power now exists to create three-dimensional virtual experiences without prior rendering of images. Computer processing has become quick enough to allow real time rendering, which in practical terms means that the costs and complication of 3D experiences are lower. Exhibitors and media designers do not need to create pre-rendered images which are activated by the visitor; the image that the visitor sees is created by the computer in real time while the interaction is taking place. This has a large impact on usability.

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Through immersive technologies or simply through a screen, the visitor can see complex three-dimensional relationships that have not been available prior to LiDAR. Not only are they able to explore areas through data walk-throughs, but they are able to appreciate and see areas that are not accessible to physical exploration which means they are still unexplored. So far, LiDAR has been used in small-scale exhibition applications, for television programmes and for archaeological research. Its true potential in exhibitions has still to be explored in a fully immersive three-dimensional digital environment. There are indeed whole worlds that lie yet to be discovered. When they are explored, they will reveal new stories and objects which can be contextualized within the virtual environment. ScanLab brilliantly deployed this technology in the Italy’s Invisible Cities television programme, revealing the dense layers of history in cities such as Naples, Venice and Florence where they explore the hidden spaces which have ‘helped these great cities change the world.’12 In Naples ScanLAB explore the Bourbon Tunnels, a ‘time travelling experience through original Roman cisterns that later became 17th century aqueducts, 19th century escape tunnels and finally second world war air raid shelters.’13 The ScanLAB team went on to map the ruins of ‘Herculaneum, Roman quarries and Neapolitan catacombs, before ending in Baiae at the original Roman pleasure baths, much of which is submerged under the Bay of Naples.’14 Italian cities are extremely dense and, in many cases, public streets are narrow and hard to explain through conventional story-telling. The scans allowed the presenters and the audience to float through Italy’s cities and explore private courtyards, tunnels and private buildings. The political intrigues of famous popes, political families such as the Medici and famed revolutionaries such as Savonorola were retold spatially through digital representations. Subsequently, ScanLab went on to embark on a number of projects such as the Mail Rail, a now defunct underground rail link between Paddington and Whitechapel deep beneath London’s streets. The Royal Mail’s high speed network delivered letters across London in a little under 5 minutes to their sorting office at Mount Pleasant near Farringdon. The Mail Rail was abruptly closed in 2003, and the underground complex of tunnels, trains and platforms has remained exactly as it was. In 2015, ScanLAB scanned and captured 3D images of the the tunnels, platforms and terminals along with all the spanners, nuts and bolts which were left lying where they were by the maintenance engineers. When The British Postal Museum opened on the site in July 2017, two permanent installations—Time Telescope and Network Explorer—were created from those captured 3D scans. The Time Telescope takes the visitor back in time to show how ‘the Train Depot looked before the Museum renovated the space. Peeling paint, engine parts and spanners can all be discovered as you search and zoom through the scan.’15 Guiding visitors around the extensive underground network beneath Mount Pleasant, the Network Explorer gives ‘a forensic perspective to the labyrinth of tunnels, platforms and sidings, which makes up the Mount Pleasant section of the Mail Rail.’16 The scan data and touch screen allow audiences to explore hidden areas from impossible viewpoints through a digital interface.

Physical re-creations using 3D scanned data Using scanned data, there is increasing use of accomplished ‘fake’ environments such as the physical recreation of the prehistoric caves with their paintings in Chauvet and Lascaux in France. The paintings in Chauvet are found in buried caves and were accidentally discovered by three cavers in 1994. The caves were quickly sealed after the discovery to avoid deterioration, and they have remained hidden apart from occasional visits by researchers. An accurate reconstruction made using 3D scanning techniques nearby is now a haven for tourists. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the reconstruction is a fake, 90 per cent of visitors feel that

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they have had authentic heritage experiences at Chauvet. Few report dissatisfaction with this accurate and accomplished facsimile.17 The Lascaux developments are remarkable in that a new ‘fake’ or recreation of the Lascaux caves is the third attempt to copy them and to present a facsimile of the caves to visitors. Originally discovered in 1940, when four boys decided to explore a hole opened up by a fallen tree, the complex of caves was open to visitors until it became clear that the influx of people was causing terrible harm to the paintings. The exhalation of breath by the visitors led to a build-up of damp which made mould develop on the paintings and threatened to destroy them, causing the caves to be closed in 1963. The first facsimile, Lascaux 2, was opened in 1983 and has been seen by 10 million visitors. Lascaux 3 is a series of portable panels that has toured the world. In 2019, Lascaux 4 opened with an interpretive experience designed by Casson Mann, in a building designed by architects Snøhetta. Digital scanning provides highly accurate representation of the caves, although the painting is undertaken by artists from photographs.

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6.12 3D laser scanning was used to create replicas of 20,000-year-old cave paintings. Casson Mann, Lascaux International Centre for Cave Art, France, 2019

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6.13 Twenty-five artists copied the paintings onto the resin over a two-year period, using similar pigments used for the originals millennia ago. The replicas hang from the ceiling above the heads of the visitors, while the acoustics and temperature of the interior mimic the caves’ original conditions. Casson Mann, Lascaux International Centre for Cave Art, France, 2019

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The designers have made some interesting tweaks to this kind of experience. There will be no texts or panels. Instead, visitors are equipped with a companion de visite, a high-tech, handheld tablet with headphones. It stores images of paintings which you can select along the way, and needs two hands to operate so discouraging smartphone use. External media are blocked as far as possible. Digitally recreated constructions are suspended from the ceiling in an interpretive hall, the Atelier de Lascaux. Visitors can linger over the paintings, and explore information triggered by invisible links in the sections themselves. Other ‘interactives’ allow experiments with prehistoric painting methods and explain why the real caves discovered in 1940 are closed.

Working with raw data The role of the content curator is key in interpreting raw data. For the exhibition designer, the potential of LiDAR scanning lies in the fact that 3D scanning is not only a mode of discovery, but also an experiential means by which exhibition visitors can engage with the content. The research and the means by which it can be communicated are connected and that informs the power of the medium. You can see with real fidelity what ordinarily you could not. It allows you to look around and discover for yourself. ‘The data reveals layers and spatial relationships. And those are really important. These are quite unique stories that have been captured in three dimensions, you can unravel them, they can be inspected, stopped, picked apart. And that’s really the key and we love being able to visualize that.’18

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Satellite archaeology, a superpower used from space In a parallel development, remote satellite data has been used on an unprecedented scale to make multiple new discoveries about archaeological sites, most notably in Egypt. Sarah Parcak, a self-styled ‘space archaeologist’ who founded the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham is widely credited with popularising the importance of satellite remote sensing and was awarded the TED prize for 2016. Her work, looking at satellite imagery alongside ground-based surveys, has helped make numerous discoveries and alerted researchers to many more potential archaeological sites. Archaeologists are quick to point out that remote sensing data on its own is insufficient to claim new discoveries, but nevertheless, remote sensing has proved to be a dramatic aid in the discovery of new archaeological sites, particularly in remote and hard-to-reach locations.19 Parcak has sought to popularize her work by enlisting schoolchildren to analyze satellite data, and now leads a charitable organization that shares imagery from satellites through a web platform.20 Via the portal, children take part in an online tutorial to analyze satellite data and to help experts to identify images that are worthy of further study. The portal offers examples of images which show evidence of archaeology and children are asked to decide which photos show real evidence and those which do not. They are marked on their outcomes and given opportunities to increase their score. This is an activity that children can do at home as part of an assignment or purely for pleasure. It shows how technology can democratize archaeology and empower children to work on real science.21 The potential to use this kind of technology in an exhibition is great, as the remote sensing has the opportunity to contextualize archaeology on a global scale, showing extremely high resolution images of small areas, and enable comparison globally, from Angkor Wat to Egypt or perhaps your own home. VR, Mixed Reality and other immersive technologies are only partially proven in the exhibition environment. Yet they have the potential to create the kind of games that will allow visitors to ‘roam the world’ in a social environment. Although these experiences can be delivered in the home, they are better experienced where they can be used to contextualize real artefacts and specimens.

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Using new techniques to represent people, the possibilities of new technologies

6.14 In early 2016 Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles announced that they had secretly scanned a bust of Queen Nefertiti in the Neues Museum in Berlin. They produced a 3D print of the artwork from their 3D scan. Nora Al Badri, The Other Nefertiti

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How should we represent people in exhibitions? This is an age-old challenge with which exhibition makers have struggled. How do you give a voice to the past? Exhibitions usually ask us to imagine people from written story panels or by printed quotes on a wall. They display the objects that people owned or interacted with in a showcase. For more recent subjects, they show film footage. But often this seems too passive for exhibition audiences. The UK National Holocaust Centre in the UK faced exactly this challenge. The Centre had long relied on the personal testimony of a dwindling group of Holocaust survivors. Their testimony was central to the visitor experience through which generations of people have learnt about the Holocaust. But as these survivors grow old and some pass away, it has become increasingly challenging to offer the opportunity for children to meet with survivors. But what could stand in for a real person with real memories of the Holocaust? To simply record testimony from the survivors on film seemed a poor substitute for a real person. It was a media company, The Forever Project, who were asked to provide a solution.

Recording speech and simulated dialogue Their process for making recordings and for replaying them is new for museums. It presents a series of both visitor experience and technical challenges. Their approach involves recording answers to about one thousand common questions over a two-hour interview. In the new display, the visitor encounters a screen with an image of the survivor. The visitor asks a question into a microphone, and a computer analyzes the question and provides the most appropriate answer. Through the recorded media, video and audio, the survivor then ‘speaks’ to the visitor. The challenge for the system is to accurately pick up keywords and other clues from testimony to choose the right ‘answer’ from the available recordings. The experience is remarkably effective and successful with young visitors. It also allows respite for the remaining survivors who day-to-day continue to relate their experiences. For the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Nottingham, UK, the impetus to preserve the invaluable testimony of the remaining survivors of the Holocaust is strong. ‘The opportunity is fleeting,’ says Martin Stern, who survived the Terezin concentration camp as a child. ‘This is a unique opportunity to make an irreplaceable contribution to genocide education for the future.’22 The National Holocaust Centre and Museum makes a clear distinction between its traditional recordings of survivors and the three-dimensional mapping and virtual animation of celebrities, the ‘deepfakes’ that are increasing appearing on the internet. They stress recordings are actual recordings of real people with high definition audio.

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Using new techniques to represent people, the possibilities of new technologies

Are there things about museums that should stay the same? Dave Patten describes why he likes the serendipity of a museum visit. ‘We could personalize the museum experience. But you might lose the social element of the museum. We could fundamentally alter the nature of museums without meaning to. You might lose that serendipity. (In today’s museum) you may have come to see a particular exhibition and you might end up spending time looking at an early printing press. The problem with digital is that you often lose that serendipity. How do you bring serendipity into the digital experience, where you are looking for something but end up finding something equally interesting that you had never seen before?’23

Digital mapping of faces and film technology Increasingly the film industry has constructed digital 3D models of the faces of interviewees. Using the digital representation, they can animate the digital models to simulate the appearance of people speaking. Voice recordings are used to build up synthesized versions of speech and can accurately replicate an actor’s voice. They offer the opportunity, not only in museums, but for film production to create digital ‘performances’ in which the actors take no part. Film-makers now routinely use special effects to make actors look younger and to erase the effects of ageing. In films like The Irishman directed by Martin Scorsese, actors such as Al Pacino and Joe Pesci were shown in flashbacks as younger men. The film footage taken of acted scenes was touched up to give the illusion of a younger body and super-imposed on the actor’s performance. In other developments, a well-known deceased actor such as Peter Cushing was brought back to the screen as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars spin-off Rogue One. Carrie

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6.15 An immersive media experience tells the story of the Empire State Building. The media was produced using real actors shot against a green screen and super-imposed on a digital model of the building and its environs. Squint Opera, Empire State Building, US

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6.16 After intensive research into period costume and the exact detail of historic events, key scenes in the building’s history were recreated. Squint Opera, Empire State Building, US

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Fisher was resurrected in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. At the time of writing, James Dean is apparently about to reappear as a lead actor some 64 years after his death.24 Museums are not usually as wealthy as film studios, but they frequently have access to excellent archive material from which to make simulations of historical figures. The Salvador Dali museum in Miami used old recordings of Dali to produce an uncannily accurate video portrait. Dali appears to talk quite normally to visitors to the museum. The Museum boasts that Dali ‘lives’ at the Museum, and it is hard to argue with their claim that he would have approved of his immortalization through digital techniques.25

True or false, the dangers of digital manipulation Any digital manipulation of images does have dangers. There is a justified fear that the 3D virtual mapping of people could lead to a loss of trust. If faces can be successfully scanned and animated, it is also possible to misuse a virtual model to make those faces appear to say things that they would not or should not. In the case of the Holocaust survivors, the testimony is responsibly and accurately recorded. Yet the opportunity to scan video testimony and manipulate it is open to anyone with the requisite software. Will this technology give licence to make unauthorized and harmful edits to existing archive footage? Will history be ‘faked’ in the future and no longer trustworthy? What is certain is that the ability to discern an artfully manipulated fake is a skill that the public will have to continue to refine as technology changes. In a polarized world, aggressive attempts to undermine factual evidence for political gain are now common. Deep fakes have been a prominent element of the Impeachment crisis in 2019 in the US, and what is clear from the data is that older people are more vulnerable to misperceiving fakes. ‘Older people are much less tech-savvy,’ says Christina Hitrova, a researcher in digital ethics at the Alan Turing Institute for AI. ‘They’re much more likely to share something without fact-checking it.’26

Artificial intelligence

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To add to the justified concern about the use of deep fakes to falsify stories, programmers of artificial intelligence are writing software adept at faking pictures of humans. Algorithms are able to generate images iteratively with ever-increasing speed. The software registers instances where machine-generated images are rejected as fake and generates new iterations until it learns the ‘rules’ of veracity and is able to pass machine-generated images as real. The advent of quantum computing will increase machines’ ability to generate images which appear to be real. It is easy to imagine a disturbing future where truth and fiction will be harder to discern. Future historians will be obliged to examine images and films to determine what is real and what is computer generated. New forms of watermarking are being used to defy the algorithms, but the process of verification will become more complex and more difficult. Yet there is often a playful side to re-enacting history in which digital fakes could play a part. AI can learn to iteratively create holographic re-enactments, for example, of historical scenes. If the AI appears to be inauthentic, the possibility exists to regenerate in a more believable form until accepted as real. Routine making of museum digital ‘fakes’ as historical re-enactors or as stand-ins for real, but deceased humans is ever closer. To achieve it would require a complex mix of technologies: straightforward digital modelling, DNA analysis of skeleton bones, animation, motion capture and other animation software. Yet dinosaurs are being virtually replicated in this way already for films and natural history museums. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to see this process being widely replicated for humans and for exhibitions.

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Exploring fake news

Exploring fake news

The Stapferhaus in Lenzburg, Switzerland have a unique agenda as makers of exhibitions. Billed as a ‘place of dialogue, inspiration and discovery where everyone is welcome’, it seeks to open its doors to those who see social change as an opportunity. But it also addresses an uneasy future. Perhaps more than any other museum, it sets new standards in staging topical debates in an open and inviting setting. Its makers have avoided traditional museum exhibition tropes. The institution came into being without either a building or a collection. But they had great ideas. Before long, they had begun to stage some of Europe’s most exciting exhibitions. Trained in journalism, philosophy and media, they soon moved into a very fertile ground that they made their own. The exhibition Fake. The Whole Truth points a way for makers of exhibitions to a very different kind of experience to anything else shown in this book. Framed as popular entertainment, it is unafraid to take on real, current and topical issues. While providing fun, it is thought provoking and one of the very few exhibitions that is aimed directly at developing critical skills. School groups visit on a daily basis. Students are asked to formulate their own views about information sources. They are asked to question the basis of their own everyday judgements. The exhibition is presented as an ‘Office for the Whole Truth’ where visitors visit ‘departments’ on a fact-finding mission and participate in a sequence of interactive experiences. It asks about truth in love, in politics and in every aspect of life. The exhibition asks questions about fake news, fake profiles, fake products. It looks at corporations that cheat, athletes that take drugs and politicians who don’t tell the truth. The visitor is constantly asked: what’s genuine? What’s true? What’s a lie? Who can we trust?

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6.17 Visitors are asked to choose between conflicting accounts; what is the truth, they are asked? Kossman de Jong, Fake. The Whole Truth, Stapferhaus, Switzerland

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Truth

6.18 Visitors are asked to choose between conflicting accounts; what is the truth, they are asked? Kossman de Jong, Fake. The Whole Truth, Stapferhaus, Switzerland

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6.19 An exhibition that delights in showing the thin line between ‘true’ and ‘false’, and asks if it is sometimes necessary to tell lies, Kossman de Jong, Fake. The Whole Truth, Stapferhaus, Switzerland

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Exploring fake news

Exhibition organization Unlike most exhibitions, Fake. The Whole Truth has discarded the traditional models of exhibition design circulation. There is no chronological or thematic organization. Instead, Fake asks you to literally choose a side. Visitors go on a search for truth, weighing and judging the assertions of others. It asks you to look at sex, money, abuses of alcohol and power and asks if you have been lied to, or even if you wish you had been lied to. It asks who really pulls the strings. It says ‘the truth is taking a real pounding now, everyone is accusing everyone of lying . . . What do we hold true as a society, I hope you don’t lose your mind in this maze of truth and lies. And don’t forget, the Truth needs you.’ Visitors encounter experiences such as the Credibility Commission, Department for Education in Lying and Pinocchio-ology, Strategic Deception Department, Lie detection Department, Media office for (old and new) fake news. Other experiences include a Test facility for counterfeits and counter-counterfeits, a One Stop Lie Drop-in Centre and the Agency for Truth Seeking and Security. Workshops, events and publications attached to the exhibition allow opportunities to explore themes in greater depth. The Stapferhaus ‘addresses its visitors as equals and invites them to form their own views. As a laboratory for the art of living, the Stapferhaus makes difficult things accessible and draws out connections and relationships without delivering ready-made conclusions. Thus, the exhibitions at the Stapferhaus make it possible to recognize and negotiate the present day.’27

Flexible architecture The Stapferhaus building is, in itself, a fascinating construction. Unlike most museums that strive for an ‘iconic’ appearance, the Stapferhaus is designed to enable great exhibitions. Flexible, adaptable, economic and sustainable, this building is a framework that allows for expansion and change. Herman Kossman called it ‘a dream building without restrictions for everybody who wants to make narrative spaces. I think the first special designed and build in his kind in Europe, maybe in the whole world.’28 The Stapferhaus has shown how topical exhibitions can be engaging and fun. With very few artefacts, but a refreshingly brisk way of making experimental experiences, it opens up public debate and dialogue. The design is bold and direct with a graphic strength that has become a characteristic of the institution. The search for truth is not buried under the interpretations of objects. It asks you to make decisions – literally; to commit yourself on your interpretation of the facts and asks you, the visitor, where do you stand? The exhibition demands that the audience move beyond passive absorption of a message and asks them to raise questions and to think independently.

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Truth

The future of the real

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Exhibitions which present alternative accounts and ask us to consider detailed evidence, such as Forensic Architecture’s exhibition at the Tate Gallery, can pioneer new ways of presentation in museums. New sources of information and evidence are proffered and provide an opportunity to illustrate how people without the backing of the state are able to question accounts of violent incidents. The use of superpower technologies, such as satellite data, LiDAR and groundpenetrating radar can evidence stories in new ways. They can bring unfamiliar but important topics to exhibition audiences. But not only are we seeing organizations such as Forensic Architecture question official accounts, there are also exhibitions which ask the visitors themselves to take on the role of enquiry. Exhibitions such as Fake. The Whole Truth ask us to abandon our neutrality and commit to answering questions. They ask us not to observe or absorb passively, but to participate in an experience where judgements should be made. They ask us to value questioning and the mental tools we require to look beyond official accounts. The exhibitions pose the question, if the visitor, is continually presented with many versions of truth, how will they, and how should they respond? The ‘how’ of establishing facts is changing as we have seen. No longer are historians engaging with new ways of comprehending the world from new sources which are accessed in ways that are unfamiliar to traditional exhibition making. In the public arena, there are a plethora of news sources that are using this information today. As they grapple with competing accounts, curators of the future will look to new tools and sources of information. These tools have their own modalities. As with any evidence, they are liable to falsification and manipulation. Technologies such as satellite images, social media profiles and digital reconstructions are being used by campaigners and journalists everywhere to substantiate their accounts. We are only at the beginning of this change. The availability of data generated by sensors, scanners, cameras and other computer-controlled devices is increasing apace. This chapter discusses some examples of how digital experiences can be used to relay real accounts of individual experiences such as those recorded at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum. And we also see how digital techniques are being used to fake appearances in films and seemingly bring historic characters back to life. There are both risks and opportunities here. We will be able to see realistic facsimiles of people of the past, but as we innovate in creating these facsimiles, the opportunities to falsify are correspondingly increased.

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7

Virtual

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Going online

The Covid-19 pandemic, according to UK government sources, began in December 2019. By 25 January, European governments were advising citizens not to travel to China’s Hubei province. A short seven weeks later, performing arts venues, theatres, museums and galleries came to terms with the lethal consequences of staying open. Closures and suspensions of service ensued. The offer of a fun evening in the company of friends and family in a public space, so much part of the fabric of modern life, was abruptly terminated. At time of going to print in spring 2021, public museum venues are still closed. Large arts organizations are not well adapted to sudden change. Museums and galleries provide online offers, but they are peripheral to their main business. None have found effective ways to monetize their collections and the expertise of their staff. Websites feature prominent links to donation pages as they seek help during a time of dire need. While in Europe governments deliver packages of aid to institutions and organizations, freelancers and independent artists rely on their own resources and ingenuity. Many are forced to wait for the trickledown of money from the arts organizations that governments or large donors deem worth saving. This chapter features an exhibition put together in April 2020 during London’s first lockdown when all physical exhibitions in the UK were closed. Without the resources of a large organization, a virtual exhibition was staged. The Living Object gallery was not endowed with the hundreds of thousands of pounds required to make a public exhibition. It did not have a marketing budget, staff or any kind of normal infrastructure. Yet, within its own terms it was successful. It fulfilled its purpose of helping to provide a living for a group of artists whose only resource was their own effort and time. The Living Object gallery was very different from the other exhibitions described in this book. What follows is a personal account of how the exhibition came about. Although it is only one of the few online exhibitions that occurred during lockdown, it is one in which I was personally involved. To describe it in the third person and with academic distance would be disingenuous. For this reason, my description, unlike others in this book is written in the first person.

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7.1 Before the Covid19 lockdown, neighbours celebrating the finishing of my ‘gallery’

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Virtual

7.2 Clockwise from left: Wheelthrown ceramic vessel by Jaejun Lee; Porcelain sculpted Species Pots by Charlotte Pack; Tapered stripe vessel by Justine Allison; Wheel-thrown ceramic vessels by Anna Silverton. Living Object, UK

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7.3 Our exhibits arrive and are placed on shelving I made myself. Living Object, UK

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7.4 Getting ready to go live. Living Object, UK

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Making a virtual exhibition from scratch

Making a virtual exhibition from scratch

In 2018, I began to design and construct a home gallery in my spare time. The desire to make a gallery myself using carpentry skills acquired years earlier was due to a common frustration for exhibition makers. Other people who work for museums may recognize this too. Projects get delayed, and a concept that is conceived in a few short weeks or months takes years to realize through intensely detailed design stages. There is a lot of important detail that can’t be skipped over. The pleasure of seeing something constructed from drawings and opened to the public is often delayed. Like any other designer working in pursuit of a client’s objectives, the principal aim is to serve the client. Of course, we have fun with details here and there, use nice materials and so on. I am not complaining. My day-to-day work is fun and I’m lucky. But the opportunities to play more experimentally with shapes and forms the way that architects or product designers do are rare. I missed that. The needs of the client’s story come first in my professional life and the Living Object gallery was a welcome distraction. There was also an ambition to ‘stretch’ the concept of the exhibition as one of my role models, the architect, theatre and exhibition designer Frederick Kiesler, had done. Kiesler championed the idea of ‘elastic’ or ‘endless’ space,1 an idea that I felt could be further explored in the digital age. There was another compelling reason to start making a gallery, which had nothing to do with exercising my woodworking skills. My partner, who I met at art college over 30 years ago, had given up her office job and started to make ceramics. First working on our kitchen table, she had won an award, and had set up her studio in a craft collective in London, Cockpit Arts. Her reputation had climbed and she was selling well. She could use the new ‘gallery’ to show her work. Meanwhile, her pieces sat in boxes on the floor of our living room. Making the gallery was a way to resolve a messy pile of assorted boxes. Unlike the typical public exhibitions paid for by museums, our new project had to be built for a few thousand pounds from our own pockets.

7.6 Before the Covid19 lockdown, a neighbour came around to cut a red ribbon. Living Object, UK

7.5 The Zoom calls are advertised on Instagram.

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How artists reach their audiences

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We had discovered that exhibiting and bringing Vanessa’s work to public attention was financially hazardous. Most commercial art and craft fairs are costly and there is no guarantee of sales. You can bet your house on a successful show and make nothing. Galleries who resell work take at least a 50 per cent cut of the sales price. This is not to begrudge them their sales. They work hard to get these sales and often pay high business rates and rents. But there is an obvious incentive for artists to create direct relationships with their clients, especially through forums like Instagram. Vanessa, like many of her peers, posts her work on social media sites regularly. She makes photographs and camera phone videos about her process. There is a global audience of professional and amateur artists and ceramicists who do the same. The audience are also authors. It is as if everyone gets to make their own TV show and say what they like. Some are vastly more popular than others. Some people are quite uninhibited. It is, to some degree, a community. People post things like, ‘L-o-v-i-n-g L-i-f-e !!!!!’, there are quite a few cat lovers, one describes herself as ‘Avid sewist, potter/ceramicist, occasional painter and all-the-time cat lady’ and another points her followers to her cats’ own Instagram site. But, it is clear that some social media presences both on Instagram and Facebook are professionals with their own studios and shops. The descriptions of themselves and their work are professionally presented and photographed. Quite a few accounts are private. If they do like cats, many Instagrammers are keeping quiet about it. This whole story would be unremarkable if it wasn’t for one viral post that Vanessa made on Facebook. She posted a film about her life as a ceramicist. As Vanessa and I packed our clothes to go on vacation in Botswana in Southern Africa, she posted the video on her Facebook page. Within hours, both Vanessa and I were on a plane to Johannesburg and then Maun in Botswana for a two-week adventure in an off-road vehicle. We slept in a tent at night on the roof of our car to avoid wild animals. There was not a whiff of wifi for two weeks. Spoiler alert. This is one of those freak stories that sounds like an urban myth. But in this case it happens to be true (I swear). The sequence of events is mapped out on her Facebook page in strict chronology, so there can be no disputing the facts. After nearly two weeks on the road, we found ourselves back at a hostel in Maun, a remote natural paradise. Maun is close to the famous Okavango swamps. We were there at the perfect moment, just after the rains, to see Africa’s biggest annual gathering of large game animals: elephants, bison, lions, crocodiles, hippos and countless antelopes. Finally after two weeks off-grid, this hostel offered wifi. It had been a relief not to look at any computers for over two weeks. With a quick glimpse at Facebook however, we realized that the video had over one million shares! It had gone viral. It had been picked up by a website called Bored Panda amongst others, and was shared, reposted and generally broadcast everywhere imaginable. Who are Bored Panda? we pondered, and what is the implication of this sudden but qualified fame? What does it mean to have a video seen by 1 million people? At first it seemed like a magnificent irrelevance.

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Translating the viral success of a video into tangible benefits

Translating the viral success of a video into tangible benefits

The viral success of the video was translated swiftly to Instagram where a following grew. Vogue in New York featured Vanessa’s work. Other magazine articles followed. It is hard to say why commissions started to come in too, whether the viral video was the prompt or whether people started to see her work on a number of platforms and took an interest. Vanessa made no real attempt to understand where her buyers came from, although the data attached to her newsletters (using mailchimp) did give an idea of who was looking seriously at her work and who did not. You may be wondering what this has to do with museums and exhibitions. But the link is more than tangential. It shows how individuals are using the power of social media to attain renown, popularity and sales. Perhaps the most interesting element to the story is that the followers get to know the artist well. A short video clip of a piece on a ceramic turntable or a time-lapse shot of the making process mean that the virtual visitors are highly informed. They really do have an appreciation for the physicality of the work that the artists are producing and the means by which the pieces are made. People order online without ever have seen the work or the artist in person. High-quality photos and videos give buyers confidence in the artist’s product and to buy their work. It is this single aspect of the social media revolution that is so remarkable. The virtual visitors spend quite a lot of time scrolling through posts. They get to see artists’ lives unfold. They see studios, work being made, opening up a kiln after a firing, throwing away a bad piece of work. They see shots of artists packing up their work before an exhibition and exhibiting their work. The interpretation is authored by the artist themselves. They choose what to show and what not to show. But some facts about the art itself are revealed in a way that is unachievable by any other means. The ‘virtual visitors’ to artists’ studios are not reliant on curators or gallerists to interpret their work. They can see it for themselves. 7.7 Our first advertising on Instagram of our nine artists. Living Object, UK

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Virtual

The impact of Covid-19

It was during a moment of reflection about the value of attending an art fair that the pandemic that started in Wuhan changed public life. Social distancing in the UK was imposed after similar restrictions in France, Italy and Spain. The advent of Covid-19 changed everything very quickly for all artists and for me too. Museums and galleries postponed projects and the likelihood of them reopening seemed vanishingly distant. My work designing exhibitions teetered. Suddenly we found ourselves with a lack of any viable alternatives, except to go down the path of virtual exhibitions. A vague plan to turn our house into a gallery that could be seen online suddenly became an urgent necessity. If we could make it work, it looked like the gallery would be our sole source of income, as all exhibitions in public institutions and private galleries stopped. A quick call around to other artists for a group show ascertained that there was enthusiasm for the idea of an online exhibition. The artists – who were popular figures in their own right – took only a few days to make a decision. They were in the same situation as us. There were eight artists: Vanessa Hogge, Charlotte Pack, Anna Silverton, Helen Johannessen, Arjan van Dal, Jaeun Lee, Paul March and Justine Allison. They had a combined following of 100,000 on Instagram. Without knowing how an online exhibition could work, we felt that there were new interesting ways of exhibiting that we could try. There was inevitably a conference call on Zoom, the platform that nobody had heard of a couple of months prior but which had become in two months the dominant mode of connection and conversation. With hindsight, our inability to mute microphones while others were speaking, find ‘Gallery View’ or ‘Start Video’ were comical. I’m ashamed to say that the first meeting we organized about this impending show was a bit of a shambles. The agenda wasn’t followed. Vanessa and I were meant to be leading the call, but we hadn’t really agreed what we were going to say, and the artists were a bit frustrated by the lack of leadership. One suggested that future video calls be led by someone else, the most experienced artist in the group (who later declined). But somehow the project was kicked off, and a date was set for the exhibition 8–10 May 2020, just four weeks away.

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An online exhibition

An online exhibition

At that stage, we were still pondering what an online exhibition could be, even after we had decided to stage one. Vanessa had once or twice made videos about her work and released them on Instagram and that had prompted some engagement so we were confident that a format would be found. As soon as the pandemic hit, museums were uploading content onto their websites as fast they could. The predominant format was an empty gallery with a number of points around the gallery that virtual visitors could click on. You click on a hotspot on the screen, and the camera steers towards the click-point. Usually something on the screen glows or throbs until you click on it and some content is revealed, a piece of text written by a curator, and perhaps a good high resolution image unfurls of a master painting. The first thing that strikes you is the lack of a human element; the gallery’s emptiness. There is no guide, you do everything yourself. The gallery is captured in a small window on a website page, the image is flat and a bit dull. Clicking doesn’t always work in the way you expect and sometimes you find yourself turning the wrong way down a corridor. The museums had no doubt put this together quickly. But the experience soon became a bit dull. I noticed how reproductions of paintings, when they are compressed into a small number of pixels, lose their magic. There were a few examples where high-resolution images were made available straight away, but that only served to whet the appetite for seeing something more real and tangible. Pixels are not paintings, nor will ever be.

7.8 Photos of the final pieces were taken shortly before the opening of the exhibition. Living Object, UK

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Virtual

We decided that the Living Object online exhibition would be a human experience. Although you could not actually see the objects in person or touch them, we would offer something else: a personal engagement with the artists. Having spent time writing this book, I had the words of some sage critics and commentators in my mind. The first point was that people want to do things that they see being done by people they admire. The Living Object website was going to be interesting if good ceramicists were involved. It would make sense to make that the focus and illustrate their participation. No one had heard of the Living Object gallery, it was still just a room in the front of our house. The only thing that could make it exciting was the participation of the artists and to hear them speak about their work and connection to the virtual gallery. I also considered the words of Dave Patten from the Science Museum in the UK. He is a digital specialist, and when asked for his favourite experience in a museum, he doesn’t talk about some special digital trick, he talks about personal experiences – one-to-one with a curator. The fact that a curator can read you as a person, think about what you may be interested in, and tailor their comments to you make the experience of meeting the curator special. No digital platform or interaction can really compare to that. So we decided that we would use the technology of the moment, Zoom, to deliver virtual tours of the gallery, but we would also have one of the artists on the call. So the visitors would get a brief introduction and a tour around the space showing the work of all of the artists, and then we would start a dialogue with the artists themselves. The really nice element to this was that the artists would be in their own studios. They could show their workspace and talk about how their work is made, the tools they use, and give an insight into their process.

7.9 Sculptor Paul March in his Geneva Studio. March’s illuminating ideas and discussion were key to Living Object’s success. Living Object, UK

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Virtual tours

Virtual tours

A scheduled list of virtual tours was put onto the hastily assembled website and before long we had bookings. People wanted to go on our virtual tours! We were surprised and happy. A booking sheet was opened and over the two weeks in the lead-up to the virtual exhibition, over 60 people signed up. These are not big numbers but we were encouraged because no one had heard of us, we were working out of a tiny space, and there was at least an expectation that nothing at all would happen. We had a well-founded fear that the whole thing would flop. On one of our regular Zoom calls with the team of artists, someone mentioned Instagram Live as a way of reaching the audience. I hadn’t heard of it, nor had a number of others. Someone said that their teenage kids had used it, and everyone was suddenly interested. Nowadays kids are prime early adopters. Where the kids go, adults usually follow a little way behind. The Zoom calls were not an unqualified success. They weren’t. Most went off well, but there were a couple where unanticipated things happened. Some of the artists were also more natural than others, although all were good. At one point, one of our virtual tourists took a business call in the middle of the tour and started talking really loudly. The artist was drowned out entirely. It threatened to be a disaster until we learned that the administrator of the call could mute the microphone of any participant. But that only happened after ten minutes when the participant’s business call was almost the only thing that could be heard. However, it seemed people wanted us to succeed and the errant businessman joined nearly all of our later Zoom calls and was extremely polite, contrite, and supportive as we pressed on with more tours. 7.10 Our makers/artists prepare for the Zoom calls with the gallery. Korean maker, Jaejun Lee’s studio. Living Object, UK

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Virtual

The feedback was mostly positive. People wrote to thank us all for the experience. They were locked down somewhere, couldn’t go out, and yet they were being treated to a high-level tour of a ceramics show. The artist studio tours were interesting, and people got a real sense of how the artists worked and their daily lives. A lot of people who follow ceramics want to know exactly how things are made. They want to know the exact work bench a porcelain-using ceramicist has, and the exact rolling pin they use to roll the clay. A virtual visitor from New Zealand (11 hours ahead of London time) called in and claimed to be transported by the whole experience. She looked to be so overjoyed by the whole thing that she was going to explode with happiness. The best part of the show, though, nearly didn’t happen. Vanessa and I were running the gallery tours, and it had become wearing. After 16 virtual tours, we were starting to feel like we were on a shopping channel. So much smiling, and just the effort of facing the public had started to be hard work, so we almost decided not to do an Instagram Live session as we had planned. But we figured out a good format. Vanessa and I would each choose four pieces of work to talk about and say what we liked about them. We threw in information that we learned about the artists through the Zooms. It was a summary and conclusion to the event. It was, in my humble opinion at least, very successful. Who would imagine that 700 people would watch that session? We were a gallery that had not existed just a few weeks ago, and now 700 people were watching our first public presentation. Supportive comments, hearts and kisses showered across the screen as we showed the artists’ work. Remarkably there was also an immediate impact on sales. People started looking on the website for the works mentioned in the talks, and bought things. Our commercial motive was small, we took only 5 per cent of the takings for our administration costs.

7.11 Anna Silverton sits at her potter’s wheel throwing a huge ceramic bowl. Anna gave insightful tours of her studio during the Living Object exhibition. Living Object, UK

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A ‘live’ platform

A ‘live’ platform

We barely advertised the Instagram Live session and did so only a couple of hours in advance. It is remarkable how many people watched. It showed me and the other exhibitors how you can achieve a lot without providing the person-to-object experience that you can by putting on a typical exhibition. That is not to say that normal exhibitions are going to die, but it does show that there is an appetite for other kinds of experiences. The virtual experience did not offer the opportunity to pick up and touch a piece of ceramic, but then neither does a museum. Most ceramic artworks are in showcases, and it is difficult to even see them adequately. On one of the Zoom calls, the artist Paul March who, digressing from discussion of his own work, criticized the typical museum. He said: Art galleries are places where art goes to live. Museums are where they go to die. The proof of that is the treatment of some of the most extraordinary ceramic traditions, Jomon pottery in the British Museum. They are placed in a showcase with the back up against a wall. The most interesting part of a Jomon pot is its three-dimensionality, you need to see them in the round. No doubt, using extensive video, artist talks and some Q&A, the Living Object gallery was able to truly show the ceramics/pottery in the round. Although there were drawbacks, as it is important to acknowledge, it reached a remarkably international audience. People called in from around the world; we had visitors from just about every corner of the globe. The sales were also extremely international. As many sales were made in the US as in the UK. Most of our virtual visitors were from the UK, West London being a favourite (which feels like a different country these days, now that we are staying local). But there was France, the Netherlands, Uruguay, Canada, the US and New Zealand too. The Instagram Live session was incredible, and again very international. People popped up from around the world; I saw that participants joined from Brazil, Belgium and Australia. In terms of statistics, there were 9,500 page views on the website and over 2,500 unique visitors, and 40–50,000 views on Instagram over about ten days. The final Instagram Live session was seen by over 700 people. Especially since we had started just a few weeks before, this seemed impressive. The sales were over £11,000 in the end which was a great figure considering the start-up nature of this. Respected bodies such as the Fondation Bruckner in Geneva, the Contemporary Applied Art Gallery and the Crafts Council in London showered us with appreciative tweets and smiley faces on social media channels. Despite initiating the online gallery, I am normally no fan of social media and my lack of experience was occasionally exposed. The highly respected Fondation Bruckner sent hearts to the gallery in an Instagram post. Not knowing how to reply, I released a shower of sad and crying emojis by mistake by pushing the wrong icon. I had to type out an apology to them which they gracefully accepted with a crying-your-eyes-out laughter emoji. If urgent green agendas, or other pandemic related crises were to occur, online exhibitions such as Living Object could always be there as a backup. Meanwhile, we felt that even though the lockdown was ending, it would make no sense to ignore the following we had created. Virtual tours, we decided, would always be a feature of Vanessa’s annual exhibition calendar whatever the circumstances. They provide a financially and economically sustainable model for the future, and something that public galleries could easily pursue given the low outlay.

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The visitor experience is pretty positive, when you include real contact with eloquent and thoughtful artists, curators, guides or others. It can be much better, more personal and more revealing than the standard museum response which was to set up empty digital environments in which the thwarted tourists are meant to click their way around a virtual gallery. But also in some ways it is more revealing than an in-person gallery visit and provides opportunities for people who are physically distant to have an experience they might otherwise not have. 7.12 Artists show both successes and failures. This image shows an artwork that had exploded in the kiln. It was one of the most commented-on Instagram posts in the lead-up to the exhibition. Living Object, UK

7.13 The Instagram live session seen by over 700 people. Living Object, UK

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How museums can use new platforms

How museums can use new platforms

It also shows how smaller events on platforms like Instagram Live, which are 15 or 20 minutes in length, generate true fascination. For those lucky enough to spend time with subject specialists, they will know that curators with a real passion for a topic often speak easily and eloquently, even in the queue for lunch. Given an opportunity, there should be far more ways for them to talk openly and easily to exhibition audiences in short accessible formats. People who followed Living Object could access our Instagram Live talk with little disruption to their daily lives, in between other things, or when fiddling with their phones during a bit of downtime. The formats can be flexible and can be fitted around busy jobs, child-care and the many other activities that fill our lives. So many gallery talks are timed when people are at work and are just too difficult to get to. It is not perhaps surprising how often the audiences are retirees and students – how can anyone else find the time? Like Living Object, online resources and platforms have the opportunity to provide fascinating glimpses backstage that provide real engagement and can build significant audiences. The media platforms will change, but the opportunity to build audiences in diverse ways continues to grow and will grow further. The Living Object online exhibition was an experience in which the human element was key. Although the exhibits could only be seen on a screen, Living Object offered something else – a personal engagement with the artists. No one had heard of the Living Object gallery before it opened for its first show; it was still just a room in a house. What made it exciting was the participation of the artists and to hear them speak about their work and connection to the virtual gallery. The fact that an artist can engage with a virtual visitor, think about what that person may be interested in, and tailor their comments to the person makes the experience of meeting the artist special. Living Object artists could offer an abundance of personal contact and interaction. 7.14 The Living Object exhibition relied heavily on photography and short video clips to communicate the concept of the exhibition, Living Object, UK

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Standout online exhibitions

There were some standout examples of online museum exhibitions. The Ashmolean from Home webpages by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was one. The Young Rembrandt exhibition, curated by Ashmolean curator An Van Camp, was closed after just a few weeks due to the Covid pandemic. Online, the Ashmolean offered a filmed walk-though of the exhibition. Footage of the gallery was elegantly intercut with interviews of Van Camp speaking about the display. The curator’s passion for the subject comes through in the slightly nervous delivery. Describing reasons behind the choice of paintings and the construction of an exhibition narrative, the viewer feels privileged to be in the company of an expert speaking with knowledge. The personal touch was very successful. The Museum of Modern Art in New York filled their website front page with a meditative photographic essays. ‘Virtual Views into our Exhibitions and Collections’ with an opportunity to join a live Q&A were offered. There was an online reappraisal of the work of Gordon Parks, photographer for Life magazine. A debate about New York, Open City was staged with architectural stars Elizabeth Diller and Mabel O. Wilson, an associate in African American Studies at Columbia University. Yet not all galleries were so active. Most were confounded by the pandemic as they sought to avoid human contact and harm caused by Covid-19. Reproductions of paintings, when they are translated into pixels, seem to lose their magic. If the VR experience of museums is to become more than an amusing oddity, it needs an injection of experiential design that it lacks currently.

7.15 An Van Camp introduces the Young Rembrandt exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum during the first Covid-19 lockdown, Young Rembrandt, Ashmolean Museum, UK, 2020

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An ‘elastic’ approach

An ‘elastic’ approach

Frederick Kiesler was a Modern Movement pioneer and a member of the famed De Stijl group of artists and designers. He championed what he called ‘endless’ or ‘elastic’ architecture. A brilliant theatre designer, he was fully alive to the potential of film and other media. He succeeded in opening the spatial confines of the theatre through illusion, mirrors, projections and astute theatrical trickery. In a recent reappraisal, Kiesler has been credited with pioneering many aspects of design practice that seem routine today. The ‘paper’ architects or visionaries such as Archigram were arguably anticipated by Kiesler. As early as the 1950s he envisioned design laboratories which combine the fields of morphology, biology, psychology and aesthetics to create new spatial building practices. In the design of galleries, he was again a pioneer who sought new methods and ideas, championing ways of challenging ‘the divorce between architecture and art’. It is impossible to know how Kiesler might have responded to the development of the internet, but it is possible to follow his fearless example. The sudden and unanticipated migration to online experience due to the Covid-19 pandemic offers opportunities that Kiesler might have embraced. Should experience-making be ‘elastic’ in the age of the internet? The use of the web in museum exhibitions was pioneered by the New York Public Library as long ago as 1996 (The Global Library). Yet it has been rare to routinely transmit exhibition tours to expectant audiences online. Most exhibitions try to bring the outside into the museum; in the case of Living Object, it is the audience who is brought in. There are evident dangers in digital posts about one’s life and work on social media sites. After all, social media monetizes users’ posts and is turning huge profits as a result (6.84 billion dollars in 2018). Criminal misuse of data is a further danger, as was discovered when the data firm Cambridge Analytica were found to be using information released to them by Facebook during the 2016 US elections. On a more local level, artists are falling prey to hackers through so-called spear-phishing. Yet traditional exhibiting venues have their own ethical dilemmas. Many museums have played a role in the PR strategies of oil companies and have been accused of ‘artwashing’ the reputations of nefarious corporations. In the most difficult of times, Living Object has shown that there is an audience for a gallerylike experience which can be easily accessed on a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop with little financial support. It showed how smaller events on platforms like Instagram Live generate real interest. Will there be more Living Object galleries in the future? Given the size of the social media audience, the established market for art sales and ease of access provided on social media platforms, it seems likely. Like Living Object, online resources and platforms have the opportunity to provide fascinating glimpses backstage that provide real engagement that can build significant audiences. As media platforms continue to develop, the possibilities of the ‘elastic’ approach to exhibitions are still being explored.

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8

Future

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A future story

We conclude by looking at the opportunities and constraints afforded the exhibition of the future. This summary revisits aspects of earlier chapters: identity, wonder, truth and the emergence of virtual exhibitions. It acknowledges the potential impact of climate change and constraints it will place on future exhibition makers. The role of the exhibiting institution, and indeed the role of every public institution, will be judged by their response to this crisis. In this final chapter, we look at the main themes of this book and explore potential for future practice and innovation.

Impacts of a warming planet The impacts of a warming planet are being experienced across the globe today. The warnings are dire. According to the former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, and her former adviser Tom Rivett-Carnac, one of the architects of the 2015 Paris climate accords, the world of tomorrow is likely to be substantially hotter than the world of today, even if the most ambitious carbon cutting targets are met. The world population will grow to a predicted 9.7 billion by 2050. Much of the population growth will occur in areas already badly affected by climate change. Migration is an obvious consequence. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac predict that policy makers will tackle carbon emissions in radical ways or face dire consequences, and there will be a major impact on all carbon-producing processes. Museum buildings, travel to exhibitions and the production of exhibition components will be constrained by those same carbon reduction targets. To preserve biodiversity, cities will become denser. New generations will be building in already existing built environments. Expansion will involve remodelling, reusing and repurposing our current buildings and increased density on urban centres. This is a point of view that has been much discussed by architects, urban planners and designers. In the words of Professor of Interior Architecture at the Royal College of Art, Graeme Brooker, we have a built infrastructure, ‘a stockpile of knowledge’ and ‘a stockpile of ideas’, that we can reuse and adapt in the future. In this philosophy, we are not working with a tabula rasa, a blank slate, but with a tabula plena.1 Instead of rejecting the past, we must embrace it and make it new. Old exhibition designs, lighting, showcases, plinths etc, will be repurposed and remade. Carbon reduction targets will limit our access to new materials. Carbon budgets will have to be smaller if global warming is to be slowed. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac also predict that air travel will become expensive and rare. There will be a drastic impact on tourism, an impact which has been pre-figured by the Covid-19

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pandemic. Re-wilding and the growing of carbon-consuming plant life will be a substantial agenda addressed by all learning and educational institutions. Our lives, and the lives of our children and grandchildren will depend on the curtailing of global warming. Planting trees and growing gardens in our cities, indeed planting on every rooftop or balcony, will be seen to be an urgent necessity. In summary, the total impact will be profound. First, there’ll be reduced in-person visits to museums where visits involve air travel. Second, migration will result in more diverse audiences with new content demands. Third, re-engineering of human activity will occur to reduce carbon usage. Fourth, there will be new restraints on construction and the use of materials in making exhibitions.

The future of the ‘identity’ museum

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As mentioned earlier, in 2050 according to conservative predictions, the world will have a 56 per cent greater population than in 2020. The ‘who am I?’ question for the growing and potentially migrating populations is more pressing than ever. Exhibitions tell stories. But they are, as suggested in Chapter 4, also about identity. They recognize people and places, and say to people that they have a place in the world. They may also want to see and explore other places, other stories, but the big question is – where do I fit in? Where is my story represented? Not being part of the story can be hurtful and marginalizing. This adds to the extraordinary sensitivity and immense difficulty of making identity exhibitions. How can exhibition makers create coherent and useful narratives? The identity exhibition always asks its makers questions around process. Who should tell the story and whose stories should be represented? What is the process that will enable increased participation, and which will enable the fair representation of peoples’ diverse histories and cultures? There are no easy means of negotiating the difficulties. However, increasing transparency is one of the tools that will help future developments. Museums must allow easy and un-barriered access to archives and stores. They should ask audiences, what can we make together? and be open to unexpected outcomes. The identity exhibition is a space in which audiences, interpretive planners, curators, artists and designers can co-create stories. It is a space in which identity is negotiated every day. As populations change and migrate, the machinery of a museum should be available and accessible to new populations as well as existing ones. It should provide opportunities to explore, retrieve, experiment, discuss and store evidence of precious histories. There is a compelling argument that the design of an exhibition space and an exhibition building should be an open space in which the formation of stories of identity is facilitated. Physical and intellectual accessibility to new audiences will drive success. I argue that the role of future designers and museum master-planners is to create transparency and openness as a first priority. How can we plan and design a transparent and open museum? To provide such transparency and openness is possibly one of the largest challenges for future exhibition makers. Digital tools which enable online access to museum holdings is proving to be a key asset in opening up museums. Yet, for new museums and refurbished museums, an age-old challenge is still present: how to provide public access to the unseen collections. Great transparency is now demanded of museums and their collections, not only by their publics, but also by people abroad who may dispute ownership and the right of some museums to be custodians.

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The increased use of digital collections in museums

The increased use of digital collections in museums

As described in Chapter 6, exhibitions may have an unparalleled access to digital data in the future. As described, this data can be used to interrogate an ongoing war in Syria, or unearth whole towns and civilizations in Guatemala. It can map the hidden spaces of Italian cities, or investigate genocides in recent history. How that data can be represented in the new exhibition is still relatively unexplored. The new superpowers discussed in the earlier chapters are only recently being deployed. Will huge 3D printing robots which use biodegradable materials or holographic environments be capable of reconstructing scenes from our past? The reconstruction of movie actor’s faces in films such as Scorsese’s The Irishman seem to point the way towards new digital visualization, as well as the special effects which evoke space in the digital film Gravity. Using these filmic techniques, it can be easily imagined that stories from 20,000 years ago, 2000 years ago, 200 years ago and 20 years ago can be portrayed with unprecedented levels of detail and knowledge using digital reconstruction tools which are still in their infancy. Will the civilizations hidden under the forests of Guatemala or Angkor Wat be revealed? Future exhibitions could use the remarkable topographic data obtained by LiDAR. What is perhaps most interesting about the new developments is the centrality of digital reconstructions to active research. The visualization of an ancient civilization in Guatemala or Angkor Wat is a central part of academic research as well as a tool of interpretation for exhibition visitors. The digital reconstructions serve both purposes. Some of the digital techniques to achieve new types of exhibition experience are available and used today in film, television and animation. Virtual bodies of humans and animals are reconstructed from skeletal remains and DNA samples. These are brought to life by a team of animators, designers, historians and interpretive specialists. Voices and sounds are simulated. These virtual figures could be shown interacting alongside collection objects. The opportunity for digitally reconstructing human histories, animal behaviour and whole environments exists already, but has yet to be systematically deployed in exhibitions. The opportunity may arise for visitors to ‘step inside’ the virtual body of a historical figure. Will visitors be role-playing in historic environments? The gaming industry has shown how this can be possible within an exhibition space or at home. Exhibitions offer the opportunity to combine the virtual digital construction and real objects, combining the benefits of digital technology with the traditional strengths in collecting and interpretation of artefacts and specimens. With currently available technologies, the opportunity exists to create ‘mixed’ experiences where physical or ‘real’ displays of historical artefacts and digitally created immersive environments are intertwined. This kind of experience could become a dominant mode of museum display. It has the potential to replace the typical lexicon of exhibition making, the showcase in a gallery. While the facts about ancient histories are increasingly revealed by digital technologies, we find that facts about contemporary social history are uniquely stored on the world wide web. As we start to chronicle the computer era, hidden histories will be revealed and new stories told. As described in Chapter 2, the archiving of web-based material is ongoing. What is still uncharted is the extent to which an Amazon Alexa, a smart fridge or TV as well as data captured from automotive LiDAR will reveal our stories. Hard drives from printers and smart fridges

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may record what we wrote and what we ate. It is likely that satellite imagery will show at high resolution where our younger selves could be found at any particular day or time. The identification and automatic classification of imagery using AI has already begun on popular social media platforms. Facebook can identify faces and people in uploaded pictures, for example. The technology is firmly embedded in public life. The plodding and painfully slow processes of identification of paintings, sculptures and people in museum archives is important work that no algorithm can do. Yet, in future AI applications will become an important tool for the scrutiny of old photographs and identification of people and places in the future. AI may provide the basis for an online library of collections that is easily accessible and detailed.

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Communication of wonder

Communication of wonder

Exhibitions communicate wonder. People go to exhibitions to see things that inspire awe. They want to say, wow, look at the size of that dinosaur! Or to marvel at technological feats. Largescale exhibits at the Natural History Museum in London, the American Museum of Natural History, or the Grande Halle d’Evolution in Paris have inspired since their inception. Visitors are not always looking for the familiar and known. Some exhibits are baffling and extraordinary. That befuddlement has set generations of people, including museum staff, on paths of self-directed enquiry. Research shows that museum experiences are memorable and formative. The effect of a museum resonates through people’s lives and careers. As we have seen in Chapter 5, exhibition makers argue that the emotional connection is as important as the intellectual connection. But the emotion is needed first. As Herman Kossman said about the making of Naturalis, the new centre for Biodiversity in the Netherlands, ‘we wanted people to say, wow, isn’t this cool when they walked in.’2 The exhibit should inspire and then inform. To take on the challenges of the 21st century, exhibition makers will be forced to address the ‘wow’ element of the experience in order to motivate and inform audiences. The size of the wondrous museum is always a factor in the ‘wow’. Are our exhibition spaces large enough to communicate the wonder of throngs of creatures, the great animals of the past and present? Can you stand next to an impossibly tall giraffe, see an elephant poised on its hindlegs or hear the deep bass grunting of a rhino? Arguably, the spaces dedicated to the world’s biodiversity with herding elephants, roaring lions, skittish springbok and curious chimpanzees have been insufficiently wondrous to prevent habitat destruction. We ask, how can the exhibition makers of the future adapt, reuse and repurpose the built environment sustainably to achieve these educational aims? To wonder at nature is to begin a process of connection and information that may protect wildlife and make space for nature in an increasingly populated world. A wondrous and sustainable museum is where generations of school children can begin the process of absorbing the impact of global warming on biodiversity. Will visitors care about the ongoing destruction of nature if they are not emotionally connected to it? In future museums, the largest exhibition might be a huge vertical garden. In a world with a growing population and billions of new mouths to feed, the production of food will change. Climate specialists predict that new ways of producing food locally will be found. They argue for a transition to regenerative farming practices – mixing perennial crops, sustainable grazing and community farming. In this way, ‘instead of going to a big supermarket for food flown in from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away,’ Figueres and Rivett-Carnac predict, ‘you buy most of your food from small local farmers and producers.’3 The science of food production is an expertise that could increasingly be promoted in museums. The exhibiting of ideas about cultivation in huge vertical gardens is an obvious opportunity, especially as visitors seek opportunities to grow crops in crowded cities. How can we re-wild areas that were previously intensively farmed? Increasingly, we will all be gardeners and take more than a casual interest in food production, as food distribution becomes more politicized and potentially erratic. The vertical garden exhibit will show how exhibition makers can turn thought into action. It is possible to turn re-wilding into something wondrous and awe inspiring. When is a better time to start than now?

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This book argues that ‘wonder’ is a central part of the mission of future exhibitions. Hard to measure, even hard to justify, transformative experiences in museums in large-scale exhibition halls with extraordinary exhibits can be significant in visitors’ lives. When setting out the priorities of government and the use of public taxes, it is easy to dismiss the claims of exhibitions and exhibitors. Intangible inspirations and mind-altering experiences can rarely be measured or justified financially. Yet, the impacts of awe-inspiring exhibits, the strange and befuddling effect of seeing a part of a fatberg in the Museum of London or the carcass of a dead animal at Naturalis in the Netherlands are long term. It can be argued that the inspiration provided by wondrous exhibitions are an essential part of building an informed and educated future.

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Museums and truth

Museums and truth

Museums are not ‘neutral’ spaces. They respond to the agendas of the people who fund them, the trustees who govern them, the people who run them and those who sponsor their exhibitions. Some are trying to affect change, and as museum commentator Jennie Carvell Schellenbacher points out, their mission statements often read like a manifesto. Change becomes ‘integral to their self-identity, work and the definition of a modern museum.’4 Where is the new sense of purpose heading? Is it wise to exhibit your own brand of truth to the world? Who will challenge the truth bearer? Eyal Weizman and Forensic Architecture have shown that exhibitions can ask hard and salient questions of their visitors. They can, like investigative journalism, hold governments and other powerful institutions to account. They can ask, what are governments and corporations doing out of sight? What is being concealed? The gallery can be a place of examination, evidence gathering and revelation. Co-curators can work with experts to gather material. They can reconstruct, sift, examine and expose the hard facts about things that are out of view. They can stage electrifying events and exhibitions that galvanize debate. Eyal Weizman points out, when it comes to the reporting of contemporary history, there is an imbalance. Governments hold evidence about their activities, and they preclude others from looking at it. When their activities are discovered, they have well-rehearsed ways of misdirecting their accusers and defusing anger by spreading blame. They concoct versions of the truth. There are well-documented cases of private companies such as Cambridge Analytica and paid-for troll factories which also work at the behest of governments. To take on a powerful state or a wealthy corporation is a huge task for any individual. They rarely have the financial resources to initiate lengthy research and evidence gathering. They may be relying on the goodwill and bravery of witnesses. Who can then speak up for truth? New exhibiting institutions should have the power to examine disputed facts independently. They have the power to ask, who was right? They can adduce evidence, commission research and act in the interests of their communities. Traditionally museums are conservative, and the power of grant-making authorities has made them unwilling to ask difficult questions of those in power. Museums of science and natural history have shown, until now, a remarkable diffidence about many aspects of the great question of our day: climate change. Forced into a defensive posture by climate deniers and the impossibility of making scientific judgements without admitting any possibility of error, they have been questioned, harassed and pilloried as false apostles. That diffidence is a natural posture for people who know that it is impossible to make any statement which has no possibility of error. Their opponents however, the fossil fuel producers, are happy to sow confusion in the public, to create misdirection and unsettle decision makers. In the exhibition of the future, I argue that there is space for examining, curating and interpreting the gaps between what is said and what is done. For some museums this will be a very difficult process as they confront their own past misdeeds, such as the collections of human remains, the stolen artefacts and the sponsorship of pharmaceutical companies and oil corporations. Yet there are precedents for exhibitions that challenge governments and powerful institutions; the work of Forensic Architecture who restage tragic events as realistically as they can, the Stapferhaus whose light-hearted creation is a bureau of fabrications, and there are

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more. Other exhibitions have been staged as courtroom dramas or as mysterious corporations whose processes the visitors explore as investigators or spies. The new museums can be spaces to develop our critical skills and look beneath the surface. Like the judiciary, they should act independently of government and tell truth to power.

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Balancing physical and online experience

Balancing physical and online experience

When travel is constrained by reduced carbon emission targets, a shift from in-person to online experiences may be necessary. As suggested in the Living Object example in Chapter 7, personal interaction will be the key to the success of online experiences. As the Covid-19 pandemic has recently shown, it can be important for museums to offer exhibitions outside their walls. The exhibition offer in future may be designed differently, concurrently as a physical in-person experience and as a virtual experience. As the Living Object gallery illustrates, the offer may not rely solely on technology. Visitors are attracted by people who are passionate and knowledgeable communicators. The success of online offers will rely, at least partly, on the ability of curators to convey that passion. The key to the development of combined virtual and in-person exhibition offers will be the degree to which they can be monetized as institutions try to stay afloat during interruptions such as the Covid-19 pandemic. There are a number of new models where audiences pay for online lectures experienced at home, which can be a potential source of revenue when movement is restricted. For example, The Guardian newspaper in the UK financially supports its journalistic output with talks by writers through events such as The Guardian Live. Some curators spend their lives working in museums without experiencing meaningful engagement with the visiting public. Can the development of easily accessible and low-cost broadcasting channels such as Instagram Live create opportunities for engagement? Museum curators are the great untapped resource of museums. Often fascinating interpreters of their subjects and with deep knowledge of their collections, they uniquely have the ability to speak on behalf of the assets they hold. Increased opportunities to speak to diverse audiences can enable curators to make collections and curating more transparent. Modern social media platforms are widely accessible to audiences. Not only when they are ready for an annual or lifetime visit to a museum, but also when they are waiting in the queue outside a post office or at the dentist. Museums are, of course, hierarchical and slow to adopt new ways of working. Faced with severe threats to their revenue streams and even their existence, is it time to grasp opportunities for innovation? Will we see new models for generating high-quality interpretation and potential revenue emerge? For artists whose incomes are reliant on gallerists and expensively assembled exhibitions, online exhibitions have the potential to build careers and to nurture talent. For audiences, an opportunity is presented to see more than just an object in a gallery. They can see and hear the artist and learn more about their motivations, processes and the environments in which they work.

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Sustainability

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As mentioned earlier, the new world of exhibiting is not a blank slate. The new museum is a repurposing of old material with superpowers added. As one commentator has said, there is no such thing as waste, just material in the wrong place. Arguably the work of exhibition makers today is concerned with moving the material more intelligently from the ‘waste’ category to the ‘useful’ category. The art of using the old and carefully inserting new additions is a practice with many greats of design and architecture; the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa is perhaps the best known. For decades since his death in 1978, architecture and design students have made the pilgrimage to his Castelvecchio Museum in Verona, which I argue is more relevant than ever. The need to inspire wonder and represent identity are central to our new fictional museum. The communication of wonder and inspiration that transport visitors from their day-to-day lives are a spatial experience, and so my museum of the future is spatially dynamic. It has space inside it for the ‘big moves’ that energize great museums. It is impossibly tall, it is literally a space for conceiving and encountering what can simply not be imagined through a VR headset or through a pair of AR glasses. It is a place to help the planet achieve carbon reduction goals and yet still provide great food with onsite composting facilities to reduce waste. This is an urgent challenge for new generations as the need to preserve biodiversity and reduce carbon in the atmosphere obliges us to adapt and remake. This will be essential work if carbon emissions are to be halved every decade from 2020 onwards, averting the worst impacts of climate change for the 9.7 billion people on the planet in 2050. What of the physical ‘grammar’ of exhibition design? The showcases, the lighting tracks and the panels and so on are a kind of lexicon that people understand and are used to. Will this physical structure support tomorrow’s stories or will the structure itself become obsolete? As collections become increasingly digital, these questions are being asked ever more persistently. The taxonomic museum has a structure that is associated with its own particular ends and which has been traditionally expressed in a form of museum furniture, of which the showcase is an important part. Will the exhibition furniture of a bygone era survive or will it be made new? There will always be a place, it seems, for the perfect anachronism. Some of the most loved institutions were conceived and built long ago, with a very different ethos. Most famously, the dioramas with taxidermy specimens at the American Museum of Natural History have survived many museum refits and new directors. New Yorkers it seems have grown up with these extraordinarily detailed dioramas and refuse to see them removed. Likewise, the stunning, great 19th-century Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée in Paris, a self-styled mecca of bones and organs from extinct and living species, has survived countless trends and fashions. We continue to reinterpret and create new opportunities for storytelling in these spaces. Digital producers are able to create digital binoculars or forms of augmented reality that enhance and reanimate these displays. They are the wonders of the future as well as the past. As technologies shift and advance, some will become obsolete while new technologies mature and are adopted. The onus will be on exhibitors to choose technologies which are sufficiently new to excite audiences, but also sufficiently mature to be serviceable. In this book, I call these new technologies the superpowers, a term that many of the producers use amongst themselves. It seems a good description of how digital technologies have radically enhanced the experience of visitors, and enable them to analyze, interact and contextualize so differently. Their great advantage is their ability to work in and around old technologies.

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Sustainability

Increasingly the old showcase or lighting track will work alongside new technologies, and be repurposed and remade. The ability to interact within the exhibition environment is by no means new, but I argue that this ability is being extended significantly. Despite the many glitches and difficulties of tackling new technologies amongst diverse user groups and in the demanding environment of the exhibition, it seems for many exhibitors, new digital technology is a game that is hard to avoid. Certainly it brings in visitors and is responsible for attracting a significant part of today’s audiences.

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Exhibition makers of tomorrow

In the new museum, perhaps the greatest new skills that are deployed are those of sharing stories, sharing authorship and broadening the range of stories that are told. The museum of the future is of course not one person’s dream but the interwoven dreams, aspirations and desires of many. The design of the engagement process is potentially the hardest challenge that our future museum will face. We hope that today’s structures will become more representative. The exhibition makers of the future, passionate individuals, group actors and partnerships will determine the real story and we wait to see how they will make the exhibitions of the future. Reflecting back over the many innovations in the museum sector, it becomes apparent that the design of the process of engagement, the meshing of gears between people and institutions, has the potential to be the most potent determinant of the future museum. The design also includes the structuring of organizations to respond and adapt to the needs of an audience. Design thinking and problem solving must be central to decision making as well as to the physical manifestation of new museum environments. Design is a key component in formulating the emergence of stories in new and dynamic exhibition forms.

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Notes

Introduction

Chapter 1

 1. Museums R+D, Reach Advisors.   2. Spock, M. (2010), ‘ “When I Grow Up I’d Like to Work in a Place Like This”: Museum Professionals’ Narratives of Early Interest in Museums’, The Museum Journal, 43:1, January 2000, available online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ abs/10.1111/j.2151-6952.2000.tb01157.x (accessed 29 November 2020).   3. Mendoza, N. (2017), The Mendoza Review: an independent review of museums in England, Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.   4. Antonelli, P. (2019) ‘Keynote lecture at Dezeen Day’, available online: https://www.dezeen.com /2019/11/13/paola-antonelli-dezeen-day-video/ (accessed 25 March 2020).   5. Pavid, K. (2020), ‘We are declaring a planetary emergency’, Natural History Museum website, 20 January 2020, available online: https://www.nhm .ac.uk/discover/news/2020/january/we-are -declaring-a-planetary-emergency.html (accessed 25 March 2020).   6. Levitt, P. (2015), Artefacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display, University of California Press: Oakland.   7. Charr, M. (2020), ‘US Museum Hires Refugees as Guides’, MuseumNext website, 21 February 2020, available online: https://www.museumnext.com /article/us-museum-hires-refugees-as-guides/ (accessed 25 March 2020).   8. Worley, W. (2017), ‘US art museum removes all works by immigrants to protest Donald Trump’s travel ban’, Independent website, 17 February 2017, available online: https://www.independent.co.uk/news /world/americas/donald-trump-protest-art-works -davis-museum-works-immigration-ban-a7584861 .html (accessed 25 March 2020).   9. Walters, J., and V. Thorpe (2019), ‘Nan Goldin threatens London gallery boycott over £1m gift from Sackler fund’, Guardian website, 17 February 2019, available online: https://www.theguardian.com /artanddesign/2019/feb/16/nan-goldin-sackler -gift-oxycontin-national-portrait-gallery (accessed 25 March 2020). 10. Hicks, D. (2020), The Brutish Museum, London: Pluto Press.

  1. Bunch, L. (2019), ‘How Lonnie Bunch Built a Museum Dream Team’, Smithsonianmag.com, available online: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian -institution/how-lonnie-bunch-built-museum-dream -team-1-180973132/ (accessed 20 April 2020).  2. Ibid.   3. Kate Hulme, Phone Interview, 4 February 2020.   4. Alex Burch, In-person Interview, 6 December 2020.   5. Macdonald, S. (2002), Behind the scenes at the Science Museum, Berg: Oxford New York, p. 189.   6. Ipsos MORI (2014), Public Attitudes to Science 2014, available online: https://www.ipsos-mori .com/Assets/Docs/Polls/pas-2014-main-report.pdf (accessed 10 February 2015).   7. Wormald, D. (2018) ‘Evolution Lit Review March 2018_Final.pdf’, Natural History Museum, available online: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam /nhmwww/about-us/visitor-research/Evolution%20 Lit%20review%20March%202018_Final.pdf (accessed 23 April 2020).  8. Ibid.   9. Dave Patten, In-person Interview, 26 November 2020. 10. Ben Gammon, Phone Interview, 24 February 2020. 11. DeWitt, J. and M. Storksdieck (2008), ‘A Short Review of School Field Trips: Key Findings from the Past and Implications for the Future’, Visitor Studies, 11:2, 181-197, DOI: 10.1080/10645570802355562. 12. Natural History Museum, ‘Nature of Science Terms’, available online: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content /dam/nhmwww/about-us/visitor-research/nature -of-science-terms.pdf (accessed 20 November 2020). 13. Natural History Museum (2015) ‘Sustainability, a public engagement literature review’, available online: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam /nhmwww/about-us/visitor-research/Sustainability %20Lit%20review.pdf (accessed 20 April 2020). 14. Define Research and Insight (2007), Public Understanding of the Concepts and Language around Ecosystem Services and the Natural Environment, DEFRA. 15. Audience Research and Insight Team (2020), ‘Biodiversity: A public engagement literature review’, Natural History Museum, available online: https:// www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/visitor-research -evaluation.html (accessed 21 November 2020). 16. Mark Earls, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’, Analysis, BBC Radio Podcast, available online: https://www.bbc .co.uk/programmes/m000fpnz (accessed 27 March 2020).

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Notes

Chapter 2   1. https://www.exploratorium.edu/ (accessed 7 October 2020).   2. https://borderless.teamlab.art/ (accessed 12 November 2020).   3. https://nmaahc.si.edu/ (accessed 4 January 2021).   4. Taplin, J. (2017), Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Have Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, New York: Hachette.   5. Ahmed Salim, Phone Interview, 17 March 2020.   6. https://www.ofbyforall.org/ (accessed 20 November 2020).  7. https://www.santacruzmah.org/exhibitions/were -still-here (accessed 20 November 2020).   8. Jen Kavanagh, Phone Interview, 26 May 2020.  9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Lubar, S. (2017), Inside the Lost Museum, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 12. Shoenberger, E. (2020), ‘What does it mean to decolonize a museum?’ Museum Next, available online: https://www.museumnext.com/article /what-does-it-mean-to-decolonize-a-museum/ (accessed 20 April 2020). 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonize_This _Place. 16. https://www.museumdetox.org/ (accessed 17 December 2020). 17. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about-us /press-office/worlds-largest-medicine-galleries -open-science-museum-0 (accessed 20 November 2020). 18. Lynch, B. (2011), ‘Whose cake is it anyway?’ Paul Hamlyn Foundation, available online: https://www .phf.org.uk/publications/whose-cake-anyway/ (accessed 21 April 2020). 19. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about-us /press-office/worlds-largest-medicine-galleries -open-science-museum-0. 20. Apperley, E. (2020), ‘How to fight the far right? Invite them in – the German museum taking on hate’, The Guardian, available online: https://www .theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jan/07 /how-to-fight-the-far-right-invite-them-in-the -german-museum-taking-on-hate (accessed 7 January 2020). 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid.

Chapter 3 158

  1. Sparkes, V. (2018), ‘Fatberg! Exhibiting the “Monster of Whitechapel”’, Museum of London, available online: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk /discover/exhibiting-fatberg-monster-whitechapel (accessed 20 April 2020).

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 2. Ibid.  3. Ibid.   4. Sofaer, J. (2014), ‘The Rubbish Collection’, Science Museum, available online: https://blog .sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-rubbish-collection -by-joshua-sofaer/ (accessed 20 April 2020).  5. Ibid.  6. Ibid.   7. Mallet, S. and D. Hicks (2019), Lande: The Calais ‘Jungle’ and Beyond, Bristol: Bristol University Press.  8. Ibid.  9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. ‘Smithsonian Exhibit,’ Baltimore Afro-American, December 18, 1965. 12. Pelley, S. (17 May 2015), ‘A Monumental Project,’ CBS News, available online: https://www.cbsnews .com/news/african-american-history-culture -smithsonian-institute-60-minutes/ (accessed 2 February 2016). 13. Bowley, G. (28 May 2019), ‘Leader of Smithsonian’s African American Museum to Direct Entire Institution,’ The New York Times, available online: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/arts/ design/lonnie-bunch-smithsonian.html (accessed June 2, 2019). 14. Lubar, S. (2017), Inside the Lost Museum, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 15. https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initiatives/african -american-treasures. 16. Webster, P. (2018), ‘Existing Archives’ in N. Brügger and I. Milligan (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Web History (First Ed.), London: Sage Publishing. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Jim Boulton, Phone Interview, 15 April 2020. 20. Webster, P. (2018), ‘Existing Archives’. 21. Jim Boulton, Phone Interview, 15 April 2020. 22. Forensic Architecture was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2018 and exhibited at Tate Britain 26 September 2018 to 9 January 2019. 23. Krause, B. (2013), ‘The voice of the natural world’, TED, available online: https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=uTbA-mxo858 (accessed 20 April 2020). 24. Ben Gammon, Phone Interview, 24 February 2020.

Chapter 4   1. Bunch III, L. (2019), ‘How Lonnie Bunch Built a Museum Dream Team’, available online: https://www .smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution /how-lonnie-bunch-built-museum-dream-team -1-180973132/ (accessed 20 April 2020).  2. Ibid.  3. Ibid.  4. Ibid.  5. Ibid.  6. Ibid.

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Notes

  7. 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, US.   8. Bunch III, L. (2019), ‘How Lonnie Bunch Built a Museum Dream Team’.   9. Macdonald, S. (2002), Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum, Oxford: Berg. 10. Engelsman, S. (19 June 2019), ‘Weltmuseum Wien’, lecture at Communicating the Arts Conference, Copenhagen. 11. Ibid. 12. https://www.weltmuseumwien.at/en/press /a-colonial-thing/ (accessed 20 November 2020). 13. Tim Ventimiglia, Phone Interview, 9 April 2020. 14. Ibid. 15. O’Doherty, B. (1986), Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, San Francisco: The Lapis Press. 16. Hicks, D. (2020), The Brutish Museum, London: Pluto Press. 17. Akanbiemu, M. (2019) Draft Proposal for the Loan and Exhibition of Selected Cultural and Arts Artefacts Material to the British Museum (Unpublished Exhibition Proposal), OOPL: Abeokuta. 18. ‘A question of artefacts,’ Analysis (2019), BBC Radio 4, 14 October. 19. Ibid. 20. 28 November 2017, Ouagadougou University. 21. https://www.theexhibitionist.org/ (accessed 21 November 2020). 22. ‘A question of artefacts,‘ Analysis (2019). 23. Ibid.

Chapter 5   1. Herman Kossman, Phone Interview, 28 February 2020.  2. Ibid.  3. https://www.kossmanndejong.nl/project/leven -naturalis/ (accessed 22 November 2020).  4. https://www.kossmanndejong.nl/project/death -naturalis/ (accessed 22 November 2020).  5. Ibid.  6. https://www.kossmanndejong.nl/.   7. Herman Kossman, Phone Interview.   8. Ahmed Salim, Phone Interview, 17 March 2020.  9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another -word-for/awe.html (accessed 22 November 2020). 17. Doran, F. and L. Landles (2016), ‘Non Visitors Research’, Bluegrass Research, available online: https://www.derbymuseums.org/wp-content /uploads/2017/08/16087-Non-Visitors-Research -Report.pdf (accessed 11 May 2020).

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18. Humphrey, T., and J. Gutwill et al. (2005), Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. 19. Ibid.

Chapter 6   1. Forensic Architecture, shortlisted artists for the Turner Prize 2018 at Tate Britain, 26 September 2018 to 6 January 2019.   2. Jim Boulton, Phone Interview, 15 April 2020.   3. William Trossell, Phone Interview, 12 November 2020.   4. Dave Patten, In-person Interview, 26 November 2020.  5. Ibid.   6. ‘Laser Scans Reveal Maya “Megalopolis” Below Guatemalan Jungle’, National Geographic, 9 April 2019.  7. Ibid.  8. Ibid.   9. Dunston, L. (2016) ‘Revealed: Cambodia’s vast medieval cities hidden beneath the jungle’, The Guardian, 11 June 2016, available online: https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/11/lostcity-medieval-discovered-hidden-beneath -cambodian-jungle (accessed 21 November 2020). 10. Ibid. 11. William Trossell, Phone Interview. 12. https://scanlabprojects.co.uk/work/italys-invisible -cities/. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. https://scanlabprojects.co.uk/work/mail-rail -viewers/. 16. Ibid. 17. Duval M., B. Smith, C. Gauchon, L. Mayer and C. Malgat (2019): ‘ “I have visited the Chauvet Cave”: the heritage experience of a rock art replica’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 26: 142–162. 18. William Trossell, Phone Interview. 19. Stinson, L. (2017), ‘Want to Be a Space Archaeologist? Here’s Your Chance’, Wired, 1 January 2017, available online: https://www.wired.com/2017 /01/want-space-archaeologist-heres-chance/ (accessed 5 April 2020). 20. Stinson, L. (2016), ‘Sarah Parcak Is a Space Archaeologist. Soon You Will Be Too’, Wired, available online: https://www.wired.com/2016/02 /sarah-parcak/ (accessed 5 April 2020). 21. https://www.holocaust.org.uk/interactive. 22. Dave Patten, In-person Interview, 26 November 2020. 23. Parker, K. (2020), ‘Rolling Back the Years: Is De-aging Tech the Future of Film-making?’, Engineering and Technology Magazine, 15 (2): 34–37. 159

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Notes

24. Chivers, T. (2019), ‘What do we do about Deepfake Video?’, The Guardian, 23 June 2019, available online: https://www.theguardian.com /technology/2019/jun/23/what-do-we-do-about -deepfake-video-ai-facebook (accessed 21 November 2020). 25. Ibid. 26. https://stapferhaus.ch/welcome-to-the-stapferhaus (accessed 21 November 2020). 25. Herman Kossman, Phone Interview, 28 February 2020.

Chapter 7 1. Phillips, S. (2017), Elastic Architecture: Frederick Kiesler and Design Research in the First Age of Robotic Culture, Cambridge Mass: The MIT Press.

Chapter 8   1. Brooker, G. (2017), ‘Tabula plena’, SISU, The Royal College of Art, available online: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=Yfy4XZRMHCk (accessed 21 November 2020).   2. Herman Kossman, Phone Interview, 28 February 2020.   3. Figueres, C. and T. Rivett-Carnac (2020), The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, London: Manilla Press.   4. Carvill Schellenbacher, J. ‘Empowering Change: Towards a Definition of the Activist Museum’, MuseumId website, available online: https:// museum-id.com/empowering-change-towards -a-definition-of-the-activist-museum/ (accessed 21 November 2020).

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Stapferhaus, https://stapferhaus.ch/welcome-tothe-stapferhaus (accessed 22 November 2020). Stinson, L. (2016), ‘Sarah Parcak Is a Space Archaeologist. Soon You Will Be Too’, Wired, available online: https://www.wired.com /2016/02/sarah-parcak/ (accessed 5 April 2020). Taplin, J. (2017), Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Have Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, New York: Hachette. The National Holocaust Centre and Museum website, https://www.holocaust.org.uk/interactive (accessed 20 April 2020). Walters, J. and V. Thorpe (2019), ‘Nan Goldin threatens London gallery boycott over £1m gift from Sackler fund’, The Guardian, available online: https://www.theguardian.com/art anddesign/2019/feb/16/nan-goldin-sackler -gift-oxycontin-national-portrait-gallery (accessed 25 March 2020). Webster, P. (2018), ‘Existing Archives’ in N. Brügger and I. Milligan (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Web History (First Ed.), London: Sage Publishing.

Welt Museum Wien website, https://www.welt museumwien.at/en/press/a-colonial-thing/ (accessed 20 November 2020). Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Decolonize_This_Place (accessed 20 April 2020). Williams, P. (2007), Memorial Museums, Oxford: Berg. Word Hippo website, https://www.wordhippo.com/ what-is/another-word-for/awe.html (accessed 22 November 2020). Worley, W. (2017), ‘US art museum removes all works by immigrants to protest Donald Trump’s travel ban’, Independent, 17 February, available online: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/americas/donald-trump-protest-art works-davis-museum-works-immigration -ban-a7584861.html (accessed 25 March 2020). Wormald, D. (2017), ‘What do we know about adaptation?’ Natural History Museum, available online: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/ dam/nhmwww/about-us/visitor-research/ Adaptation%20Lit%20review.pdf (accessed 20 April 2020).

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Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to all of the individuals who have offered their expertise in the writing of this book. My thanks to Ben Gammon who has shared his profound insights in many different aspects of exhibition making and has tutored me in a number of areas. He can take no blame for my errors but considerable credit for some of the better insights, particularly in respect of engagement and visitor studies. I would like to acknowledge the generous assistance of Frith Williams at Te Papa. I am indebted to Ahmed Salim from 1001 Inventions for the fascinating account of the 1001 Inventions story, and his review of my retelling. Much of this book was written after a series of lengthy interviews with highly skilled museum staff responsible for authoring many of today’s great exhibitions. They include: Alex Burch from the Natural History Museum; Ashley Holmes from the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz; Charlotte Kingston from the National Railway Museum; Dan Hicks and Sarah Mallet of Oxford University; Dave Patten of the Science Museum; Eyal Weizman of Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths College, London; Paul Bowers formerly of ACMI Melbourne; Peter Gorgels of the Rijksmuseum; Sam Jenkins from the People’s History Museum; Vyki Sparkes of the Museum of London and Jen Kavanagh. I would like to acknowledge a number of academic staff who have taken time to share their knowledge and insight, they include: Damian Evans of the French Institute of Asian Studies in Paris; Jeremy Myerson, Graeme Brooker and Katrine Hesseldahl at the Royal College of Art; and of course Tricia Austin at Central St Martins. Interviews with non-institutional practitioners have helped me beyond measure, and I want to thank talented consultants, and designers: Ant Pearson of Clay Interactive; Clyde Lawson and Damian Smith of ISO Design; Craig Riley of Casson Mann; Helen Eger of Eger Studios; Herman Kossman and Lieke Kietelaars of Kossman De Jong; Jim Boulton of 64 Bits; Jon Plowman, Joshua Jordan, Kate Hulme, Matthew Clark and Holly Brearley of United Visual Artists; Oliver Marlow and Sharon Sargent of TILT Design; Peter Webster of Webster Consulting; Sarah Coward from Forever Holdings; Vadim Charles of Squint Opera; and Will Trossell and Manuela Mesrie from Scanlab. I owe a debt to the remarkable Nick Appelbaum for his willingness to enable a sabbatical from normal project work. Ralph Appelbaum needs no introduction to most exhibition professionals, but I would like to acknowledge the significance of his contribution to the world of exhibitions. I would also like to recognize Melanie Ide, Aki Carpenter and the New York-based team for their achievements at the NMAAHC. Tim Ventimiglia is the Director of Ralph Appelbaum Associates in Berlin and his considerable insight is greatly appreciated and valued. I would also like to thank colleagues Phillip Tefft, Director of the RAA UK office and Jessica Holbrook, a constant source of calm and detached exhibition wisdom. My thanks to Casey Lynn and Jenni Bell for their patient sourcing of images. All of the views expressed here are my own, and in no way represent any official position of Ralph Appelbaum Associates. My profound gratitude goes to Casper and Lydia Hughes, whose idealism and belief in a better world have partly inspired this book, and of course, to my partner in nearly all things, Vanessa Hogge. I would like to acknowledge my late father, Clifford Hughes, for the many conversations that ultimately led to my interest in the topics of this book. Many thanks to dear friends Simona Sideri and Paul March for their help in reviewing the text. Finally, I would like to thank Bloomsbury publishers, Louise Baird-Smith for her enthusiasm for this project and Leafy Cummins for her patient response to my endless queries. Thanks (always!) to the designers of this book.

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Credits

0.1 © Ron Blunt 0.2 © Antonio Olmos 0.3 Clay Interactive Limited 0.4 © photo Eric Solé-2016

1.1 State Central Museum of Cinema (Moscow) 1.2 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1.3–1.8 Philip Hughes 1.9 © Thijs Wolzak 2.1 SI.SA 2.2 © Ron Blunt 2.3 SI.SA 2.4 1001 Inventions 2.5 Photos by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (the MAH) 2.6 Photos by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (the MAH) 2.7 TILT 2.8 TILT 2.9 Photograph: Ralf Hirschberger/AFP/Getty Images 2.10 Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy Stock Photo

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3.1 Courtesy Museum of London 3.2 Horniman Museum and Gardens 3.3 Joshua Sofaer 3.4 Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford 3.5 © Daniel James Homewood 2016 3.6 Dan Court 3.7 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture 3.8 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture 3.9 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture 3.10 Courtesy of the People’s History Museum, UK 3.11 Courtesy of the People’s History Museum, UK 3.12 Courtesy of the People’s History Museum, UK 3.13 Courtesy of the People’s History Museum, UK 3.14 Courtesy of the People’s History Museum, UK 3.15 64 Bits Exhibition. Photo by Micha Theiner 3.16 64 Bits Exhibition. Photo by Micha Theiner 3.17 64 Bits Exhibition. Photo by Micha Theiner

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3.18 Forensic Architecture 3.19 British Library 3.20 Great Animal Orchestra Photo: James Medcrad 3.21 Great Animal Orchestra Photo: James Medcrad 3.22 Great Animal Orchestra Photo: James Medcrad 3.23 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture 4.1 © Ron Blunt 4.2 © Ron Blunt 4.3 © Ron Blunt 4.4 © Ron Blunt 4.5 © Ron Blunt 4.6 Philip Hughes 4.7 Philip Hughes 4.8 Ralph Appelbaum Associates 4.9 Ralph Appelbaum Associates 4.10 Ralph Appelbaum Associates 4.11 pierer.net/ARG Ralph Appelbaum Associates/ Hoskins Architects 4.12 pierer.net/ARG Ralph Appelbaum Associates/ Hoskins Architects 4.13 pierer.net/ARG Ralph Appelbaum Associates/ Hoskins Architects 4.14 pierer.net/ARG Ralph Appelbaum Associates/ Hoskins Architects 4.15 Ralph Appelbaum Associates 4.16 Philip Hughes 5.1 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 5.2 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 5.3 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 5.4 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 5.5 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 5.6 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 5.7 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 5.8 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.9 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.10 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.11 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.12 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak

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Credits

5.13 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.14 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.15 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.16 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: Maarten van der Wal 5.17 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: Maarten van der Wal 5.18 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: Maarten van der Wal 5.19 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.20 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.21 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 5.22 1001 Inventions 5.23 1001 Inventions 5.24 1001 Inventions 5.25 1001 Inventions 5.26 ROH. Luke Hayes 5.27 Gayle Laird, Exploratorium, www.explorato rium.edu 5.28 Gayle Laird, Exploratorium, www.explorato rium.edu 5.29 Susan Schwartzenberg, Exploratorium, www. exploratorium.edu 5.30 Amy Snyder, Exploratorium, www.explorato rium.edu 5.31 Amy Snyder, Exploratorium, www.explorato rium.edu 6.1 Forensic Architecture 6.2 Forensic Architecture

6.3 Forensic Architecture 6.4 Forensic Architecture 6.5 Forensic Architecture 6.6 Caroline Sturdy Colls, Scanlab, Forensic Architecture 6.7 Caroline Sturdy Colls, Scanlab, Forensic Architecture 6.8 Caroline Sturdy Colls, Scanlab, Forensic Architecture 6.9 Background elevation courtesy of NASA SRTM 6.10 Damian Evans / Journal of Archaeological Science 6.11 Francisco Goncalves 6.12 © photo Eric Solé-2016 6.13 © photo Eric Solé-2016 6.14 Al-Badri/Nelles 6.15 Squint Opera 6.16 Squint Opera 6.17 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 6.18 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 6.19 Design: Kossmanndejong, photo: © Thijs Wolzak 7.1 Philip Hughes 7.2 Jaejun Lee, Charlotte Pack, Justine Allison, Anna Silverton 7.3–7.8 Philip Hughes 7.9 Emilie Fargues, Fondation Bruckner 7.10 Jaejun Lee 7.11 Anna Silverton 7.12 Vanessa Hogge 7.13 Vanessa Hogge 7.14 Philip Hughes 7.15 Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

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Index

3D laser scanning, 116–18 1001 Inventions, 22, 23, 91–5, 97, 98 A Abbe Museum, 27 Abiodun, Rowland, 22, 63–5 Active Prolonged Engagement (APE), 101, 102 activist collecting, 34 adjacency, 37, 38 agenda-setting exhibitions, 11–14, 21 airborne laser scanning technology, 115 Akanbiemu, Sir Martins, 71 algorithms, 122, 148 Al-Haytham, Ibn, 93–4 Altmann, Susanne, 30 Ambode, Akinwunmi, 62 Ament, Sharon, 34 American Museum of Natural History, 149, 154 An Van Camp, 142 Anderson, Benedict, 65 Angkor Wat, 113–15 Araeen, Rasheed, 66 Archigram, 143 Architecture of Appropriation, 2 artefacts, 5, 69 artificial intelligence (AI), 122, 148 Artists’ International Association, 43 Ashmolean Museum, 142 audience studies, 11, 15 audiences, 1, 7–10, 17, 57, 61, 81, 94, 95, 99, 103, 105, 116, 120, 125, 126, 132, 137, 141, 143, 153 authorship contested histories, 29–31 curation and co-curation, 27 empowering ‘activist’ exhibitions, 21–6 exhibition, 19 exhibitions changing, 20 museums working with communities, 28

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awe feeling of, 77–81 and wonder, 81–2 B Balancing Ball Exhibit, 100 Baltimore Afro-American, 41 Beat Plastic Pollution, 35 Benin Bronzes, 72, 73 ‘big idea,’ 8, 10, 17 Botticelli Reimagined, 4, 61 Boulton, Jim, 47, 109 Bowers, Paul, 7 British Library Sound Archive, 49 buckyball, 101 Bunch, Lonnie, 5, 56–9, 60 Burch, Alex, 8, 10, 165 C Cambridge Analytica, 143, 151 Chauvet, 116, 117 chronology, in exhibitions, 61 Cockpit Arts, 131 Colls, Caroline Sturdy, 111 A Colonial Thing, 68 Columbia University Human Rights Web Archive, 46 Covid-19, xii, 86, 129, 131, 153 virtual exhibition, 134 Craggs, Jamie, 35, 37 crowd-sourcing, 41–4 cultural artefacts, 73 Cushing, Peter, 121 D Dean, James, 122 Death exhibition, 84, 85 Decolonize This Place, 27 Derby Museums, 99, 100 Derby Silk Mill project, 25, 26 Dialogue in the Dark, 47–8 digital manipulation, 122 digital mapping of faces, 121–2 digital techniques, 122, 126, 147, 155 digital tools, 16, 48

Dixon, William, 43 DNA, 89 E Earls, Mark, 15 Eisenstein, Sergei, 2 Elbaz, Gil, 46 Elephant Clock, 92 emotional rollercoaster, 12 enabling change, 15 engagement specialists, 9 Engelsman, Steven, 66, 68 Evans, Dr Damian, 115 exhibition, xii authorship, 19 centralising oríkì, 63–4 chronology in, 61 contemporary archaeology, 38–40 crowd-sourcing and political symbols, 41–4 excitement of, 2 facing pressure and protest, x–xi fundamental part of, 17 future of, ix–x ‘ingredients’ of, 33 open-ended exhibition, 65 opportunity, 62 repatriation, 70–3 representations of culture, designer’s role in, 68–9 representations of people, 69 sensory exhibits, 47–8 sound, 49–50 spatial reconstruction, 48–9 storytelling exhibition, 74 ‘stuff’ of, 52 traditional concept of, 8 using assets, 51 using Yoruba culture, 65 web archiving, 45–7 working with communities, 68 world museums, complex legacies of, 66–7 exhibition design, vii, xiv, 58, 72, 125, 145, 154

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exhibition experience, viii, 11, 20, 147 exhibition organization, 3, 125 Exploratorium, 20, 100–102 F Facebook, 21, 132, 143, 148 Fake. The Whole Truth, 2, 17, 123–6 fatberg, 34, 35, 52 Ferdinand, Franz, 67 film, xi, 5, 6, 8, 17, 23, 25, 28, 40, 41, 51, 60, 90, 95, 97, 120, 122, 126, 132, 142, 143, 147 film technology, 121–2 Fisher, Carrie, 121–2 Flamman, Peter, 87 flexible architecture, 125 The Fog Bridge, 98 Fondation Bruckner, 139 Forensic Architecture, 48, 105–9, 126, 151 forensic use 3D modelling, 107 fully immersive three-dimensional digital environments, 115–16 fun, 98–103 future balancing physical and online experience, 153 communication of wonder, 149–50 exhibition makers of tomorrow, 156 of ‘identity’ museum, 146 museums, digital collections in, 147–8 museums and truth, 151–2 sustainability, 154–5 warming planet, impacts of, 145–6 G Gammon, Ben, 5, 6, 8, 51, 98 gap analysis, 7 Garrison, Thomas, 113 Golden Age, 22, 90, 91, 93–5 Goldin, Nan, x Gravity, 147 The Great Animal Orchestra, 49, 50 The Guardian, 153 Guatemala, 113–15

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H Horniman Museum, 35–7 Hulme, Kate, 7 humanizing science, 87–93 Humphrey, George, 43

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I identity developing volumetric relationships, 58 film and interactivity, 60 humanizing history and context, 59 juxtapositions, 60 museums of, 55 narrative framework, 57 scale and context, 59 storytelling booths, 60–1 ‘identity’ museum, future of, 146 immersive spaces, 107–9 ‘ingredients’ of exhibitions, 33 interactivity, 60, 101 An International Experience, 2 Internet Archive, 46 interpretive planners, 6, 7 inverse laboratory, 88 The Irishman, 121, 147 J John K. Randle Centre, 22, 62–4, 74 joint storytelling, 4 ‘Jungle,’ 38, 39 juxtapositions, 37, 60 K Kahle, Brewster, 46 Kavanagh, Jen, 25 Kiesler, Frederick, 143 ‘killing your darlings,’ 7 Kingsley, Ben, 91 Kossman de Jong (KDJ), 17, 82–90, 99 Kossman, Herman, 149 Krause, Bernie, 49, 50 L Lascaux, 116–18 LiDAR, 111–16, 118, 147 Life exhibition, 82–4, 142 linear chronology, 12, 57 Living Object gallery, 129–31, 133, 135–7, 139–41, 143, 153 M Macron, Emmanuel, 71 Made to Stick, 5 Mail Rail, 116 Mallet, Sarah, 39 Mann, Casson, xii Marsh, Allison, 51

Masquerade interactive film, xi The Medicine Galleries, 28 memorable stories, 3 Micropia, 86–90, 97, 99 Mixed Reality, 119 Museum Detox, 27, 71 Museum of Art and History (MAH), 23, 24 Museum of Modern Art, 142 museums, viii, 28 digital collections in, 147–8 future, 151–2 of identity, 55 protests at, x N Naples ScanLAB, 116 National Geographic, 113 National Holocaust Centre and Museum, 120, 126 National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), viii, 5, 20, 42, 56, 57, 60, 74 National Museum of World Cultures, 73 National Portrait Gallery, x Natural History Museum, 8, 10, 11, 165 natural phenomena, 101, 103 Naturalis, 82, 86, 149, 150 Network Explorer, 116 New York Public Library, 143 non-contextual exhibitions, 69 O Oduwole, Seun, 19, 21, 22, 62, 63, 65 Omezi, Giles, 73 online exhibition, 129, 134–6, 153 online experience, 143, 153 open-ended exhibition, 65 oríkì, 63, 65 P Pacino, Al, 121 Parcak, Sarah, 119 participatory project, 26 Patten, Dave, 121, 136 Pegida, 29, 30 People’s History, 43, 44 Pesci, Joe, 121 physical in-person experience, 153 Pitt Rivers Museum, 38–40 Planned Discovery (PD), 101 political symbols, 41–4

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Index

prehistoric cave paintings, xii The Prism Tree, 99 Procter, Alice, 71, 72 protests, at museums, x Punks, 25 R Ralph Appelbaum Associates, viii, 65–8 recording speech, 120 repatriation, 55, 70–3 ‘reverse chronology’ exhibitions, 4 Rivett-Carnac, Tom, 145–6 Rowe, Cliff, 43 The Rubbish Collection, 2014, 36 S Sachs, Paul, 27 Salim, Ahmed, 22, 90, 91, 93–5 Sandoval, Alonso de, 59 satellite archaeology, 119 satellite imaging, 107–9, 111 ScanLab, 116 scenography, 82–6 Schellenbacher, Jennie Carvell, 151 Scorsese, Martin, 121 sensory exhibits, 47–8 Simon, Nina, 23 simulated dialogue, 120 social media, 133, 153 Sofaer, Joshua, 36, 37 sound, exhibitions, 49–50 Soyinka, Wole, 22 Sparkes, Vyki, 34, 35 spatial reconstruction, 48–9 spatial storytellers, viii spectrograms, 50 Stapferhaus, 2, 123–5, 151 statue of Thomas Jefferson, viii, 60 Stern, Martin, 120 story agenda-setting exhibitions and visitor engagement, challenges for, 11–14 audiences, imagine, 9 ‘big idea,’ 8, 10 breaking with convention, 2 development of, 6–7 dynamic area of practice, 1 enabling change, 15 exhibitions, fundamental part of, 17

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gap analysis and ‘killing your darlings,’ 7 joint storytelling, 4 memorable stories, 3 science, communicating messages about, 14 storytelling approach, application of, 5 superpowers, 16 storyteller, 1 storytelling, Yoruba, 63 storytelling approach, application of, 5 storytelling booths, 60–1 storytelling exhibition, xiv, 12, 16, 60, 69, 74 storytelling method, 3, 4, 51, 55 superpowers, 16, 105, 110, 126 digital, 10 discovering violent histories with, 111 fully immersive three-dimensional digital environments, 115–16 interactive experiences with LiDAR, 111–13 physical re-creations, 116–18 re-discovering Guatemala and Angkor Wat, 113–15 satellite archaeology, 119 working with raw data, 118 sustainability, ix, 14, 77, 154–5 sustainable business models, 14 T Te Papa, 78–81 Te Taiao | Nature, 78–81, 99 TeamLab, 20 technologies, 126 terrain models, 107–9 three-dimensional exhibits, 94 TILT design, 25, 26 Time Telescope, 116 transmission model, 8 truth, 105 analysis and reconstruction, 109 exploring fake news, 123–5 future, 151–2 immersive spaces, satellite images and terrain models, 107–9 using new techniques, 120–2

U United Visual Artists (UVA), 49, 50 V Ventimiglia, Tim, 68, 69 virtual exhibition artists reaching audiences, 132 Covid-19, impact of, 134 ‘elastic’ approach, 143 live platform, 139–40 museums, using new platforms, 141 online exhibition, 135–6 from scratch, making, 131 standout online exhibitions, 142 translating viral success, 133 virtual tours, 137–8 virtual tours, 136–9 visitor engagement, 11–14 visitor motivations, 10 Vogue, 133 volumetric relationships, 58 W Wagner, Hilke, 29–31 The Washington Post, 27 web archiving, 45–7 Webster, Peter, 45, 46 Weizman, Eyal, 106, 108, 151 We’re Still Here, 23, 24 The Whole Truth, 2 Williams, Frith, 81, 82 wonder awe and, 81–2 awe, feeling of, 77–81 fun, 98–103 humanizing science, 87–93 inspire and inform, 86 overcoming challenges, 93–4 reverential respect ‘mixed with fear or wonder,’ 96–7 scenography, 82–6 Y Young Rembrandt exhibition, 142 Z Zoom, 136, 137

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