I have been read some books round technique and theory of Exhibition design.
Book: Dean, David, Museum exhibition: theory and practice, First published 1994by Routledge.
“For the visitor, the exhibit environment is the primary medium of communication.”
The museum exhibition mission
Museum means a dwelling for the Muses—a place for study, reflection, and learning. Therefore, museum exhibitions are self-defining as well. They have the mission to provide places for education and reflection.
The muse-logical motivation for exhibiting is to provide the objects and information necessary for learning to occur. Exhibitions fulfill, in part, the museum institutional mission by exposing collections to view, thus affirming the public’s trust in the institution as caretaker of the societal record. Museum exhibitions also accomplish several other goals.
These include:
l Promoting community interest in the museum by offering alternative leisure activities where individuals or groups may find worthwhile experiences.
l Supporting the institution financially: Exhibitions help the museum as a whole justify its existence and its expectation for continued support. Donors, both public and private, are more likely to give to a museum with an active and popular exhibition schedule.
l Providing proof of responsible handling of collections if a donor wishes to give objects. Properly presented exhibitions confirm public trust in the museum as a place for conservation and careful preservation. Potential donors of objects or collections will be much more inclined to place their treasures in institutions that will care for the objects properly, and will present those objects for public good in a thoughtful and informative manner.
In general, a healthy and well-presented public exhibitions program affords institution credibility to its supporting community and to the broader community of museums. Exhibitions have the intent to advance the institutional mission by exposing collections to public view, providing enlightening and educational experiences, and proving the public trust. Further, the specific goals of museum exhibitions involve the desire to change attitudes, modify behavior, and increase the availability of knowledge.
Interpretation is the act or process of explaining or clarifying, translating, or presenting a personal understanding about a subject or object.
The exhibition development process
The progressive, sequential nature of the project model works well with museum exhibition development. The sequential arrangement of phases and stages may be outlined to make types of activities and specific tasks more easily discernible. Throughout development, and in each phase, there are three principle tasking areas. They are:
l Product-oriented activities—efforts centered on the collection objects and their interpretation.
l Management-oriented activities—tasks that focus on providing resources and personnel necessary to completing the project.
l Coordination activities—keeping the product- and management-oriented activities working toward the same goal.
Exhibition project model
OUTLINE OF EXHIBITION DEVELOPMENT
Conceptual phase
l Product-oriented activities:
Ÿ collecting ideas
Ÿ comparing ideas with audience needs and the museum’s mission
Ÿ selecting projects to develop
l Management activities:
Ÿ assessing available resources to do the project
l Results:
Ÿ a schedule of exhibitions
Ÿ identification of potential or available resources
Developmental phase
Planning stage
l Product-oriented activities:
Ÿ setting goals for the exhibition
Ÿ writing the storyline
Ÿ designing the physical exhibition
Ÿ creating an educational plan
Ÿ researching promotional strategies
l Management activities:
Ÿ estimating costs
Ÿ investigating sources and
Ÿ applying for funding
Ÿ establishing resource budgets
Ÿ appointing tasks
l Results:
Ÿ an exhibition plan
Ÿ an educational plan
Ÿ a promotional plan
Ÿ Production stage
l Product-oriented activities:
Ÿ preparing the exhibition components
Ÿ mounting and installing the collection objects
Ÿ developing the educational programs and training docents
Ÿ implementing the promotional plan
l Management activities:
Ÿ overseeing the availability and use of resources
Ÿ tracking progress and coordinating activities
l Results:
Ÿ presenting the exhibition to the public
Ÿ using the educational programs with the exhibition
Functional phase
Operational stage
l Product-oriented activities:
Ÿ presenting the exhibition to the public on a regular basis
Ÿ implementing the educational programs
Ÿ conducting visitor survey
Ÿ maintaining the exhibition
Ÿ providing security for the exhibition
l Management activities:
Ÿ settling accounts
Ÿ administration of personnel and services
l Results:
Ÿ achieving the exhibition goals
Ÿ preventing deterioration of collections
Terminating stage
l Product-oriented activities:
Ÿ dismantling the exhibition
Ÿ returning objects to the collection storage
Ÿ documenting collection handling
l Management activities:
Ÿ balancing accounts
l Results:
Ÿ the exhibition is ended
Ÿ the collections are returned
Ÿ the gallery is cleared and repaired
Assessment phase
l Product-oriented activities:
Ÿ assessing the exhibition
Ÿ assessing the development process
l Management activities:
Ÿ creating an evaluation report
l Results:
Ÿ an evaluation report
Ÿ suggested improvements to the product and the process
People and museums
People are the only reason for museums to exist. It may appear simplistic and obvious to say so, but that fact is sometimes overlooked in the day-to-day process of operating a museum. Everything museological revolves around the human race.
People have three principal means of gathering information, through:
l Words—language, both heard and read, requires the most effort and mental processing to extract meaning.
l Sensations—taste, touch, smell, hearing are more immediate and associative.
l Images—visual stimulus is the strongest, most memorable of the methods.
A large percentage of the information gathered by humans is visual. People process incoming images in six basic ways. These are:
l Pattern seeking and recognition.
l Mentally rotating objects in space.
l Identifying dynamic structures, or mentally constructing movement capacities of objects.
l Orthographic imagination or mentally constructing three-dimensional objects from two-dimensional representations such as maps or schematics.
l X-ray visualization or visualizing relationships as though one could see through objects.
l Visual reasoning or imagining action/reaction events.
Worldview is a personal, cognitive (rational) structure or model of the world composed of how the person sees him- or herself, and how he or she views reality.
A few of the factors that influence one’s worldview are:
l Culture
l Religion
l Physiology
l Psychology
l socio-economic status
l race and ethnic background
The foundations for building the cognitive structure are:
l facts as they are perceived
l concepts, propositions
l theories, generalizations
l raw perceptual data
DESIGN EXHIBITION
Naming the key elements of design varies, depending upon the person naming and their interests. However, there are six main elements. These are:
l value
Value is the quality of lightness or darkness, having no reference specifically to color. Areas that are black have the lowest value; areas that are white, the highest. Judicious combining of value with the other design elements can dramatically affect the visual impact. Value is controlled by pigment, surface treatment, and lighting.
l Color
Color is an extensive subject. To attempt to cover all aspects of color would be inappropriate in this context. Color requires both the physical characteristics of light energy and the action of the human brain. Colors are perceived through the filter of perception and are ascribed meanings.
l Texture
Texture is the visual roughness or smoothness of a surface.
l Balance
Balance is the quality of visual weight distribution. When images or objects are arranged symmetrically—items of equal size and weight match across a mid-point— they are in symmetrical balance.
l Line
Line is the quality of linearity. A line is a string of points with little or no space between them and next to each other to lead the eye and thus suggest direction. Line gives a strong directional content to composition. It can vary in strength, density, width, and other qualities.
l shape
Shape is the element of physical or spatial containment. It is the composite of all points forming the internal or external surface of a composition. Both two- and three-dimensional shapes are everywhere and infinite in variety.
Human factors in exhibition design
We can say that space may be defined in terms of the emotional responses aroused, as below:
l formal or informal
l cold or warm
l masculine or feminine
l public or private
l awesome or intimate
l graceful or vulgar
Methodologies and design strategies
All the tendencies, attitudes, and responses addressed so far have a definite impact upon the design process.
l Left turning upon entry
By creating an attractive, larger, brighter opening to the left, or by placing a barrier to force flow to the left, a designer can select against the right turning tendency.
l See-through panels, exhibit cases, and windows
By using these devices, a designer can capture attention, draw visitors into the next area, heighten mystery, create openness, and promote interest and movement.
l Pools of light and color
Using areas of light and color as accents plays upon chromaphilic and photophilic tendencies, enticing visitors along a path of progression.
l Landmark exhibits
Placing striking exhibits periodically throughout a gallery draws visitors through the gallery.
l Use headlining and large type
These permit quick transfer of basic information such as themes, sub-divisions, and topics. Headlines are visually more attractive than text blocks and are more often read.
l Use diagonals and curves
The human eye follows lines. Diagonals and curves are visually active. They can lead people along, and achieve enough visual motion to allow a visitor to leave one exhibit and move to the next one.
l Transitional spaces
Changes in ceiling height, color scheme, lighting level, aisle width, and other visual and physical manipulations promote shifts in attention, generate curiosity about the next space, and evoke emotional responses. Dim lighting promotes quietness and is calming. It can serve to ease the transition from one type of space to another.
Traffic flow approaches
Suggested approach
This method uses colors, lighting, wayfinders, headlines, landmark exhibits, and similar visuals to draw visitors along a pre-chosen route without setting physical barriers to constrict movement into a single path. Perhaps the most challenging and difficult approach, it promotes a comfortable learning experience for the visitor by allowing freedom of choice while maintaining contextual continuity.
l Advantages—the suggested method provides a casual path for the patron while presenting information within a coherent framework and in digestible interpretive increments.
l Disadvantages—this method depends heavily upon the success of design elements to lead the learning experience.
Unstructured approach
Upon entering a gallery, a person may choose his or her own path without a suggested route that is right or wrong. Essentially, movement is non-directed and random. This method is often characteristic of art galleries.
l Advantages—this is a suitable approach for strongly object-oriented exhibitions. It allows visitors to move at their own pace and decide their own priorities. Interpretive material must be object-directed and not dependent upon a progressive format.
l Disadvantages—this approach does not work well with storylines or directional presentations.
Directed approach
This method is more rigid and restricted than the others. The gallery is normally arranged in a one-way traffic flow with minimal opportunities for exiting before the whole exhibition has been viewed.
l Advantages—this approach allows a very structured, coherent, and didactically oriented development of a subject.
l Disadvantages—this method often promotes exit-oriented behavior as the visitor looks for a way to leave the pathway. In some cases a sense of entrapment results, while in other instances it can lead to bottlenecks in traffic flow when one person wants to stroll through and study, and another wants to find the exit.
Object arrangement
Objects from the collections and other sources are the principal ingredient in most museum exhibitions. The arrangement of objects is of primary concern for the designer.
Regardless of dimensional qualities, all objects have certain intrinsic visual characteristics that affect how they may be arranged. These are:
l Visual impact
This refers to the characteristics of the object that arrest and hold attention and relates to the strength of the individual objects and to the whole. Color, directionality, texture, and other design elements work together to create the visual power of an object as perceived by the viewer. Mono-chromatic groupings depend heavily upon value, texture, visual mass, and weight. Color compositions depend upon these elements but add color relationships.
l Visual weight
The values, textures, colors, and other design elements combine to imbue the overall composition with the quality of weightedness.
l Visual direction
Many objects have a quality that leads the eyes of the viewer in a direction— directionality. Linear elements, color sequences, weight distributions, and other design factors affect the directionality of an object or composition.
l Visual balance
Visual weight, color, and directionality combine to give an object the quality of balance. Imbalance is visually unsettling, giving the impression of being in motion or leaning. Balance produces the feeling of being at rest.
l Visual mass
Objects have the visual quality of solidity or opacity. Color, texture, value, and linearity all lend the object this quality. The visual mass relates to the apparent density of an object.
In organizing objects along an eye-level center line, several characteristics of the objects themselves affect the placement.
l Horizon lines
Particularly in representational works of art, part of the composition of the work is the implied viewpoint or eye-level of the viewer. This is the horizon line and it corresponds to the illustrated point where sky and earth meet. Horizon lines in varied works are often not in agreement with one another.
l Directionality
The direction in which an image leads the eyes—directionality—should be compatible with the intent of the designer. Some objects are strongly directional in appearance. The arrangement of groups of objects should strive to keep the viewer’s eyes moving back into the overall composition.
l Balance
Balance is usually the desired result for arrangements of objects. The characteristics of individual objects should be balanced in relation to the whole.
l Flanking
Flanking uses opposing elements to balance each other along a horizontal line, forcing the eyes toward the center of the grouping.
l Spiraling
Spiraling is more dynamic and uses the directional qualities of the objects to create a spiraling pattern of eye movement around the center of the visual mass.
Controlling the exhibition environment
Any exhibition environment comprises two basic parts:
l matter (organic and inorganic materials)
l energy
To provide adequate care for objects while on exhibit, environmental factors must be controlled as precisely as possible. The main factors to consider are:
l temperature
l relative humidity (RH)
l particulate matter and pollutants
l biological organisms
l reactivity of materials
l light
Evaluation
“It is important to keep in mind just who is visiting an exhibit and what kinds of expectations these individuals may have.”
In evaluating an exhibit, some questions to ask might include:
l Does the exhibit attract and hold visitor attention, and if so, how well and for how long?
l Are visitors learning anything?
l Does the exhibit meet the needs of people? Does the exhibit address and answer their questions?
l Do visitors feel the museum experience is personally rewarding?
l Does the exhibit stimulate continuing interest in the subject?
l Will the visitors return to the museum, and why or why not?
In planning to evaluate, certain parameters must be determined. These include:
l What are the data required to do an evaluation?
l How are the data to be collected?
l Is evaluation to be scientific or perceptual, objective or subjective, formal or informal, cognitive or affective?
l What is to be evaluated?
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