Object-Focused Text at the British Museum

Rebecca Penrose

2016, Exhibition (Spring 2016) Vol. 36 No. 1

visibility

…

description

11 pages

link

1 file

This article first appeared in Exhibition (Spring 2016) Vol. 36 No. 1, and is reproduced with permission.

Figures (7)

As exhibition or gallery development progresses, the interpretation officer develops detailed section plans. This much more detailed interpretive framework directs the work of the curators and the design team. It enables them to add, remove, or group objects, while ensuring the narrative remains cohesive, focused, and consistent with the interpretive plan. The section plan identifies the fundamental points that each object is contributing to the overall narrative. It also captures the requirements for all text and interpretation, including section texts, object labels, wall quotes, contextual images, and any digital or other interpretive media. summarized the exhibition’s focus on everyday domestic life in typical Roman cities (fig. 2). The second act expanded on domestic life by taking visitors on a tour of a typical home, room by room. Very occasionally, individual objects were used to heighten tension, reminding visitors of the presence of Vesuvius and the impending danger for the cities’ inhabitants. In the final section, the third act, the exhibition focused on the end of the two cities, displaying casts of bodies from Pompeii and objects that were found with people who unsuccessfully attempted to flee. Rather than end on destruction and death, a final denouement examined the legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum; the buried cities allow us to glean vivid insights into the real lives of individuals through the objects, buildings and graffiti that they left behind.

“Sutton Hoo and Europe AD 300-1100” (Room 41), whicl opened in 2014, is the most recent permanent gallery at The gateway objects in Room 41 structure visitors’ browsing behavior into a more directed way, ensuring

Incorporating other voices and perspectives Torres Strait Islanders.’4 The exhibition drew heavily on the museum’s own collection, and was part of a long- term research project—an ongoing dialogue between the museum and the people in Australia whose artifacts it holds. British Museum curator Gaye Sculthorpe and keeper Lissant Bolton, together with National Museum of Australia staff, consulted closely with Indigenous communities over the interpretation and display of these objects. Contemporary Indigenous artists were invited to respond to artifacts in the British Museum, and we incorporated their works and words in the exhibition and its catalogue (fig. 5).

and by exhibiting artists’ work. The words of the people for whom these objects were and are part of a living culture were prominently featured on walls, panels, labels, and in the digital media and audio guide. This exhibition and these voices opened a dialogue that will be an ongoing one for the museum (fig. 6).

fig. 6. An example of a subject panel text from the Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation exhibition. Quotes from Indigenous Australians were an integral part of each text panel.