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As not everyone has a smart phone or would want to engage with an exhibition in that way, I have also designed an information leaflet that is in the style of a 1918 Birmingham Gazette newspaper. It will contain the same information that can be found on the app and give further context to parts of Sophia Sturge and Lawrence Deller’s stories. This is also something that the audience can take away with them as a memento of the exhibition and can read later at home if they wish.

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As I don’t want any text in my exhibition space I needed to find a way to communicate the information to the audience in a clear and engaging way. I have designed an app that would be free for the audience to download and available on most smartphones. All of the images on the walls would have small QR codes next to them that you could scan on the app and it would bring you to a page that would tell you more information about that image/object. You could save your favourite images/stories for later, as well as share them to your social media. You could also use the app whilst not in the museum to look up whats on and find out information about exhibitions and pieces you’ve seen as the app would save all the QR codes you scanned so you can access the information later on. Allowing notifications would also let the app tell you when there are new exhibitions similar to your favourites.

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Using SketchUp I created a 3D representation of what I picture the space to look like, above are screenshots of an aerial view, as well as shots from the doorways. I feel this is an easy way to clearly communicate my concept and would like to spend more time familiarising myself with the software as there were some things that I would have like to include or make from scratch/improve upon but I am still quite a novice when it comes to this software.

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Lighting

On Sophia Sturge’s side I want to keep the light bright and natural, I want the colours on the wall to be vibrant and the whole space to really contrast Deller’s side and to use the natural skylight in the room to open up the space and bring in more natural light throughout the day. On Lawrence Deller’s I want it to be completely juxtaposed to the other side. To help the audience experience his time in Dartmoor Prison and put themselves in his shoes. I want to keep the space very dark with controlled very bright spotlights, I also want to make a false ceiling to cover the skylight inn the room and make the space smaller, making the viewer feel isolated and trapped.

[reiltinhart]

For Lawrence Deller’s Side I am designing the whole space to look like a prison courtyard. Above is a mock up of what a section may look like; concrete flooring with rocks and stones scattered around but creating a clear pathway, grey brick walls, and barbed wire where the walls meet a false ceiling. The purpose of the false ceiling is to make the space feel more enclosed and isolated, it will also help me control the lighting more accurately as there is a skylight in the room that during the day would let in too much natural light for this side. On the walls I want images of the C.O.s, the way they were treated, and their life at Dartmoor Prison. I want them to blend in naturally with the brick walls, all of these images are in black and white anyway so if the opacity of these images are lowered and edited onto the wall prints before they are made or if they are printed separately onto a clear film then they would hopefully blend in and look like they are carved directly into the stone.

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For Sophia Sturge’s side I want a vibrant mural that represents everywhere she went and what she accomplished; teaching the Irish town of Letterfrack basket weaving and how to make a sustainable business to help the community, she was president of the British Women’s Temperance Association that sought to educate people on the dangers of alcohol, drugs and gambling, she was a suffragette, a pacifist, and very anti-war, and in 1914 Sturge and other suffragettes and social reformers, across Britain, Germany, Austria and The Netherlands, assembled a Womens International Congress to try and reach a truce. Her life was so full of trying to help others and I feel every part of that story needs to be told but I don’t want to clutter the space with too much text and keep it very visual so covering the walls with just imagery lets every space be aesthetically intriguing. I have taken inspiration from the Mexican Muralism movement from the same era as the portrait that peaked in the 1920s, and specifically Diego Rivera who really became one of the most important figures of this movement.

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An aerial sketch of my exhibition layout concept.

I have started to plan out what my space might look like further. I am going to have Deller’s side in the style of the prison; brick walls, concrete floors with stones and barbed wire around the ceiling. Sophia Sturge’s side is going to be very contrasted to the other and have the lush grass of the field that surrounded the prison and a vibrant mural covering her walls, telling the stories of those she stood up and rebelled for.

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After a lesson on technology within exhibition design I had a further think about my concept and the phrase ‘bringing the painting to life’ stuck in my mind. I decided that it would bring another dimension to the design to have a screen in the middle of the room portraying a different looped video on each side. On one would be Sophia Sturge, posing as her portrait is being done, straightening her coat and keeping a clear but sensible smile, perhaps  having a cup of tea from a flask out of sight. And in front of that screen would be a life sized model of Lawrence Deller, with his easel and paintbrush in hand. On the other side the screen would show a video of Lawrence Deller, Slightly obscured by his easel and canvas, but regularly peering round to get a clear view and holding up his paintbrush to measure the life sized model of Sophia that is display in front of the screen. both sides would also have bars around the screen, physical and cold to the touch, the pair are still divided though joined through their righteous cause.

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This is a mood board around my preliminary concept design. I feel that for the audience to feel connected to Sophia Sturge and Lawrence Deller they need to be in the room with them and so I have incorporated life sized models of the two into the space, with Sturge posing as Deller paints the portrait. I also felt that the prison bars were an important part of their story, Deller lost his life because of his time spent in Dartmoor prison and Sturge was ever present and ready to help those in need of someone to be their voice, advocating for the freedoms and rights of people from all walks of life. I felt that the fact Deller was put in to Dartmoor prison, subjected to hard labour and malnourishment that caused his death, was a poignant reminder of what we did to our own people during the atrocity of war. Deller was stuck between a rock and a hard place, being forced to choose between abandoning his beliefs and fighting a war he did not believe in or going to prison and dying a meaningless avoidable death, but holding on to his principles. The conscientious objectors were vilified in their time and often overlooked as casualties of war even now so I want this exhibition to bring this to the forefront and tell a story that is often forgotten.

[reiltinhart]

For my exhibition design concept I have chosen the portrait of Sophia Sturge (1918) by Lawrence Deller. I chose this painting as I found the duality of its two stories intriguing. There is the story of the subject, Sophia Sturge, an activist, abolitionist, suffragette, philanthropist, teacher and heroine. And the is the story of the unseen artist behind the piece, Lawrence Deller, a conscientious objector that was sent to Dartmoor Prison during WWI for standing up for his pacifist beliefs and who sadly lost his life because of the conditions C.O.s were put in. This painting separates them as well as links them and has so much to say. 

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In exhibition design… the objects become the actors.

Tom Piper

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Tom Piper Guest Lecture

This week we were incredibly lucky to have an online guest lecture by none other than Tom Piper himself, discussing his well known career in Theatre, Installation and Exhibition design. He is well known for his poppy installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red around the Tower of London in 2014 as well as heading the design for many plays at the RSC. Tom walked us through his process of designing his pieces and how important it is to play with concepts and throw away ideas that aren’t working. He also spoke about finding your own way of working that is individualised and suited to you, however you find it easiest to communicate your ideas effectively to others and inspire them to create costumes and sets based on your design. When asked about creating interesting and immersive exhibitions based around objects, Tom said that for him and his theatre background, ‘the objects become the actors’ and finding a balance between information and space is really essential, pacing the layout to allow the audience time to breath and explore around learning and taking in all the information about these objects.

If you have not seen any of Tom Piper’s creations before then I really recommend exploring his work and trying to see some in person if possible, he is currently working on an Alice in Wonderland exhibition at the V&A in London that will be opening in March 2021 and is to be one of the most immersive and interactive exhibitions they have had to date.

All photos in this post are from Tom Piper’s website: https://www.tompiperdesign.co.uk/gallery/blood-swept-lands-and-seas-of-red/ I do not claim copywrite of any and would recommend visiting his website to see more of Tom’s work.

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Van Gogh Alive ~ Grande Exhibitions

Before lockdown hit this week I was lucky enough to get along to the Van Gogh Alive immersive exhibition that has been touring the globe and made its UK premiere at the Birmingham Hippodrome last month. It has been praised a lot for stretching the average boundaries that usually confine exhibition design and was dubbed the ‘most visited multi-sensory experience in the world’. To see it and stand in it was truly inspiring, and somewhat emotional. As someone that has always been such a strong admirer of Van Gogh’s life and work, it brought forward some very strong emotions, both positive and negative, as it told the story of his arduous life. He never got to experience the success and admiration that many famous artists have, and struggled socially, financially, and most significantly mentally throughout his career. Standing in that room, inside his paintings, watching the brush strokes and feeling his pain or hope or curiosity really makes you experience what he went through in a new way. In the main space there was very little text, the odd quote from him here and there, and a total of four or five sentences to keep the narrative flowing over the 45 minute loop and give context to the work. But the majority of the space was filled with enormous canvases, with projections of his paintings portrayed on them, changing and forming in time to classical music, following the highs and lows of his life. While it is an amazing exhibition and I would recommend it to anyone that has the chance to see it, I would say that it could be more ambitious from an immersive approach. The use of audio (the classical music) definitely adds another level to the space, however I would argue that something that calls itself a “multi-sensory” experience could, and should, take it further. There are always practical complications with design, but the smell of fresh paint or a cold breeze when immersed in the images of The Starry Night can do a lot to truly make the audience feel that they are there and the paintings are real.

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We, as a class, had the privilege of being shown around the Birmingham Revolutions exhibition by one of its curators, this gave us the chance to uncover the deeper history of the objects and explore their stories. They were all extremely interesting but some jumped out more than others. For example, Gillian Smith’s waistcoat, covered in almost 100 badges representing every protest she had attended and causes that were close to her heart throughout the 1970s-1980s. Or Basil Gabbidon’s electric guitar, the reggae artist played at the first Rock Against Racism concert in 1978, and he still uses his music to stand up against hate today.

The ideas are already flowing. Choosing just one of these objects is going to be difficult as they all have an amazing history and represent something much bigger than can fit inside a glass box.

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Context of Design for Performance

The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has teamed up with Birmingham City University to give students a live brief. In response to the BMAG’s new Birmingham Revolutions exhibition, I will have to choose one object from a selected list to develop a narrative and concept design that engages the visitor in a theatrical, immersive and interactive way. I am excited to experiment with exhibition design as I do not have much experience in this field and believe that exhibition can be something massively overlooked and underutilised in many museums and art galleries today.

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Thoughts on Collaboration #3

Throughout this project I have continued to learn more about how I best function in a group and how well I work collaboratively. I know that I can be a bit of a perfectionist and spend too much time on my work, never truly being happy with it, because I can’t help but think about how I could have done it differently or  what I could still do to improve it. This may have been an issue in a project as big and time restrictive as this one has been, especially when others in my group will have different approaches to the work, and most likely a different work schedule to mine. I think I need to work on some methods to encourage work from peers without appearing bossy or as though I am acting as though I am in a more senior role. I am not a naturally confrontational person but a high stress low sleep situation, such as this, seems to have brought out a side to all of us, I think resulting in us being quite defensive and snappy at times. I hope this has not affected any friendships within the group but time is yet to tell. And at least it has taught me some lessons for the future

I feel that throughout this project I have done all I could and pushed myself the farthest I ever have; in every day the space is available, and when I am not in the space doing various pieces at home. The work has been draining, I feel sleep deprived and ill. But I do feel that it has been worth it for an amazing installation, that could only have benefited from more time being spent on it. I have learned that I have the self motivation to see an intense project through from start to finish and give it everything I have, regardless of the time others give it. It is an exciting thought that that is just a glimpse into the career/field I wish to pursue. The fact 15 of us, from very different backgrounds, and very different skill sets can come together to make a stunning installation made from such a simple yet versatile material seems to be a good summary of why this course and industry enticed me in the first place. I am confident that I am going to love my 3 years here and cannot wait to get started with the next module as soon as I catch up on sleep.

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We have covered the large majority of the fox in wicker at this point, with the grids done we have begun shaping the extra layer of wicker and the fox in the direction the fur would go. It’s really starting to look impressive and pull the room together, especially with lighting the effect is really stunning. We just have to power through the last day to get it completely covered and finish dressing the space. Hopefully with some time spare to help the other groups that are behind.