In this continuation of her earlier post on the crossing (or breaking) of museum borders, Andrea Jones takes a look at one border the museum world is often reluctant to cross: who does what.
Educators Designing Exhibits
At the Accokeek Foundation (AF) we are a relatively small organization with a staff
of educators, farmers, and other administrators that help us pay the bills and
keep us afloat. We have no curators, trained historians, or scientists. In
addition, we don’t have the budget to contract with an exhibit design firm to
create the present-day exhibits that we needed for our Green History initiative.
We had no choice but to cross the boundaries between educator and exhibit
developer/designer.
But, the absence of experts actually gave us more freedom –
not less. I’ve been to numerous conference sessions and workshops (one given by
our own Linda Norris!) touting the benefits of prototyping. Our exhibits are a
step beyond prototyping in that they are never really that permanent. They are
just in a continual state of tinkering. We learn as we go.
We were particularly proud of our DIY exhibit “Underspace:
The Science of Soil.” We commandeered an old storage shed and turned it into an
immersive space that made dirt look pretty darn cool.
When visitors pull back the curtain, they suddenly enter a portal to
the underground.
As we tend to take for granted what’s in the soil beneath
our feet, we wanted people’s journey underground to look magical. After all,
there are more living organisms in a tablespoon of soil than people living on
earth! That’s pretty fantastical. We wanted our visitors to have a new
appreciation for soil because (and you may have never heard of this
environmental problem) healthy topsoil is disappearing by the day, due to heavy
use of fertilizers, commercial development, over-plowing, etc.
In our quest to bring a sense of wonder to soil we brought
our best crafting skills to bear. We used cardboard, plastic bags, yarn, lots
of fluorescent paint, and black lights to transform our little shed into the
most groovy “soil rave” you could imagine. The black lights were also a great
way to hide the fact that this exhibit was extremely low budget (total cost
around $300).
“Underspace” in daylight – not so impressive
“Underspace” under
blacklight – wow!
On one side, we represented the vibrant, diverse life within
healthy soil. On the other we recreated unhealthy soil, due to human causes.
Organic matter (compost) is being broken
down by bacteria and mycorrhizae on the healthy side.
To top it off, we enlisted the help of a sound designer friend
(shouts out to the very generous Erik Spangler!) to make recordings of the soil
on our site (along with other organic sounds) to create a soundscape for Underspace.
I was surprised how much the piped-in sound helped to create a truly immersive
space.
Unlike traditional
exhibits, ours was created in about one month. The design process was a steep
learning curve and the exhibit required continual adjustments after it opened.
The first hurdle was the herculean task of translating the researched
information about soil into a visible, 3D exhibit. How real should it be?
What about scale? How big should a rotting banana be
compared to fungal mycorrhizae? We settled on a quasi-real notion of the
underground world. We decided that exacting accuracy could take a back seat to
stimulating interest. For example, if we didn’t make bacteria large enough to
see, then we excluded a hugely important level of the ecosystem. We created these
little round boxes to represent a zoomed-in perspective, but the scale was
still not quite perfect.
Another thing about rushing – we didn’t adequately consult
experts before transforming the research into a visual representation. One of
our farmers (who is well-schooled in soil science) entered the exhibit and
pointed out that our differences between healthy and unhealthy soil were too
stark, too extreme. Our unhealthy side has zero bacterial life. “That would be
impossible,” she said. “The bacteria activity would be lower, but not disappear
completely.”
Polly Festa, farmer at Accokeek Foundation
In
our quest for clarity (an educator’s tendency) we had created a contrast that
was a bit too exaggerated. This was a good lesson. We may not have curators,
but we do have farmers. We added bacteria to the unhealthy side and amended the
text.
We learned to make better use of
the expertise we had. This year, when we re-launch the exhibit, I’d like to consult
with a soil scientist in our network. At the end of the day, we still have to
make decisions about trade-offs and balances in the realism of our representation.
But more voices will result in a fuller discussion and ultimately a more
informed decision-making process.
On one final note, I would like to underscore the advantages
we had in engaging the entire Programs Department in building this exhibit. Our
part-time interpreters' contributions were a huge asset in exhibit development
as well as in the actual construction. Not only did they lend their creativity but
they became more invested and learned more content than if we had just planned
a traditional training.
The process of creating the exhibit
created a powerful learning experience for all those involved.
Granted, it’s not realistic to involve hundreds of people
(the weekend visitors) in building something like this. I don’t think it’s
scalable in that way. But I started to think of our young, part-time staff like
a group of long-term visitors. After all, there are many of them that come and
go on to bigger and better things. If we can involve them in projects like
these and make a real impact on their perspectives, they could potentially take
our lessons with them in their future careers.
There will always be
a place for the high cost, slick-looking exhibit within the museum landscape.
But I want to encourage small museums to take on projects such as this. Why do
we have to look slick like the big guys? Sometimes the DIY aspect is exactly
what is attractive to a visitor. It’s really about the ideas and the creativity
you bring, not the dollars. Thinking across boundaries is something small
museums are often forced to do by virtue of having small staffs and tight
budgets. But perhaps we can think of these constraints as a strength – as
permission to step outside of our comfort zones and defy categorization.
5 comments:
Love this!
Love this!
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