The Queensland Museum on South Bank has just re-opened after being closed for refurbishment for a few months. Since I happened to be in town, I thought I’d drop by and have a look. More on the museum as a whole in a later post – for this one I’ll concentrate on the Bouncing Back from Disaster exhibition about the Queensland floods, which devastated many parts of the state just over a year ago.

As the one-year anniversary has only just passed, it is a very recent event that’s still fresh in everyone’s memories. The exhibition focused not just on what happened, but the resilience of the people who picked up the pieces and moved on in the wake of the disaster. Australians who followed the event on the news will remember this resilience embodied in Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s emotional “We are Queenslanders” speech:

And in the exhibition we get to see a facsimile of her handwritten notes from that day:

Graphic about resilience including Anna Bligh's notes from her famous "We are Queenslanders" speech.

This is very much a story-led, not an object-led exhibition. There is a great selection of images and dramatic footage of rescue efforts. The relatively few objects are everyday items that had been retrieved during the clean-up. I found that there was an understated power to these objects:

A mud-caked record player retrieved from the wreckage

A sizeable portion of the exhibition is dedicated to a space where visitors (many of whom would have been directly affected by the floods) are able to share their stories (I blogged about the role of museums in sharing these kinds of community memories at the time):

Part of the wall that people could stick up their own experiences of the floods. Note the exhibition has only been opened for a couple of days and there are already a considerable number of contributions. The writing table is to the right and the wall continues to the left of this image.

A poignant personal story of survival and loss

The design of the exhibition is evocative of the ‘rebuilding’ theme – the exhibition panels are mostly bare plywood attached to vertical timber supports, with construction fencing and plastic sheeting used to enclose certain spaces (see above). The design of the graphics (white text and straight lines on a blue background) looks like it is intended to represent the blueprints of a rebuilding project – but this is just a guess on my part. Overall the design fits in well with the story being told.

However, I found the exhibition sections that attempted to put the flood disaster into broader scientific context (i.e., natural disasters across geological timeframes) a bit out of place. For me this was primarily a story of human experience and this alone was strong enough – it didn’t need to be placed in a planetary context. I wonder what the rationale for including this additional content was:  To show that this was not an extraordinary event in the global scheme of things? That life on Earth has adapted and responded in the face of disaster since time immemorial? Maybe something a little less remote from living memory and human experience may have been a better choice if this was the interpretive intent (e.g., the cleanup of the 1974 floods in Brisbane).

One absent story (assuming I didn’t miss it) was the experience of the museum itself during the flood – the South Bank precinct was certainly affected and the museum presumably had to make efforts to ensure collections weren’t damaged or lost. Perhaps this ‘inside story’ was more of interest to people like me and my visiting companion (another museum person of sorts). But even so, making the museum part of the story (instead of just the reporter of it) may have added another dimension to the exhibition – the museum is as much a part of the community as any other public institution. As such, it shares our achievements and challenges.

Back in August, en route to the UK on holiday, we broke up the journey with a couple of days in Singapore. A new addition to the landscape since last time I was there (early 2009) was the ArtScience museum, which is part of the Marina Bay Sands development.

Marina Bay Sands complex with the ArtScience Museum in foreground (image from homedit.com)

It’s a landmark building by celebrity architecht Moshe Safdie, which opened in February 2011 (so still pretty new when we visited). The design was inspired by a lotus flower but it also gets called ‘the welcoming hand of Singapore’, with a total of 10 ‘fingers’ extending from the centre.

Regular readers will know that I have my doubts about ‘statement’ museum architecture. And I was wondering if this one was going to be a navigational nightmare. But surprisingly, it isn’t – mostly because the majority of exhibition space is actually below the lotus / finger structure, essentially at basement level. But before I get into the exhibitions, I’ll give an overview of the museum building itself.

Like several other Singaporean attractions (the Singapore Flyer springs to mind), the building seems geared up for high-throughput crowds. (Given our Singapore stopovers seem to always have us visiting attractions in the middle of a weekday, I have no idea the extent to which these crowds actually materialise.) Operationally it feels more of an ‘attraction’ than a ‘museum’ too – your entry ticket is priced according to the number of temporary exhibitions you decide to visit, and your ticket only gets you into each exhibition once.

The intended visitor flow is ‘waterfall’ style – i.e., you are encouraged to start at the top and work your way down through the 50,000 sq.ft. of exhibition space. At the top is the smallest level with only three gallery spaces; immediately below that is the Upper Galleries that run in a loop through all the 10 ‘fingers’. Each of the 10 spaces link together like pearls on a string. It’s one-way traffic and you enter and leave at the same point, limiting disorientation (and it doesn’t feel unduly constraining but it would depend on the exhibition I imagine). Two floors below the Upper Galleries are the main exhibition spaces and the museum shop (the lobby is sandwiched between these two levels).

The 'finger' structures in the Upper Galleries offer some unusual display opportunities.

Running through the centre of the whole building is the ‘Rain Oculus’, which collects rainwater from the curve roof and channeling it into a pool that is used as the water supply for the rest rooms. Water flows fairly constantly (before I figured out what was going on I thought it was raining outside).

The top floor, inside the tips of the tallest ‘fingers’, is the only permanent exhibition space: Art Science – a journey through creativity. This is divided into three separate spaces: Curiosity, Inspiration and Expression. The exhibition is intended as an introduction to the concept of ArtScience showing it as a manifestation of human creativity. The spaces are sparsely populated and, writing this several months later, my lasting impression is of gobos, lighting effects and projections, along with a couple of touchscreen interactives. Because it sets itself up as an introductory space, I was expecting these concepts to be more explicitly linked to in the rest of the exhibition spaces. However, this didn’t really happen as the rest of the gallery spaces are essentially given over to hosting touring exhibitions brought in from elsewhere (this is what is on now).

Unfortunately, the museum website seems to live in an eternal present and does not link in any obvious way to information about past exhibitions – thankfully, Wikipedia has stepped in to fill this gap. When we visited there were three touring exhibitions: Dali – Mind of a Genius; Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds; and Van Gogh Alive.

Dali – Mind of a Genius

I’ve been to Dali exhibitions before (Liquid Desire at NGV in 2009 and as part of a Surrealism exhibition in the Pompidou Centre in 2002), so I thought I was familiar with his work – in particular his paintings and films/animation. So for me, the surprising part of this exhibition was the number of bronzes on display (an element of Dali’s work I hadn’t seen before) as well as his forays into furniture design and the decorative arts.

One of Dali's bronzes

There were several versions of the infamous  ’Melting Clock’ motif (if anything a bit too much really!) although I thought this use of a wall of regular clocks distorted by fairground mirrors was a cute touch to finish off the exhibition:

Regular clocks rendered Dali-esque by fairground mirrors

Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds

This exhibition was about the mysteries surrounding the wreck of a ninth century Arab trading dhow, found in the Java Sea. Laden with Chinese ceramics, the wreck is proof of a maritime trade route between China and the Middle East from the era of the tale of Sindbad the Sailor.

The scope and significance of what was found on the wreck was interpreted well, along with the concept that such a find inevitably raises just as many questions as it answers. The exhibition was quite dark so I don’t have any good photos, but the website linked to above is very comprehensive. It says that the exhibition is set to tour until 2015, but no additional venues are advertised yet.

Van Gogh Alive

I was expecting this to be a fairly conventional exhibition of Van Gogh’s works (perhaps a tour from the Van Gogh Museum I’d visited in 2000) so at first I was a bit taken aback to be in a large space surrounded by tall projector screens showing Van Gogh’s work and photographs all synchronised to a classical soundtrack. But once I got over that I was able to enjoy this immersive experience (that is hard to describe but maybe these still renderings and this Youtube video gives you a bit of an idea):

It was an exhibition space you moved in rather than through – you could sit anywhere in the space and have essentially the same experience. For some reason, on the day we visited it looked like they were using the usual exit door for both entrance and exit, so it means we didn’t see the interpretive panels explaining the concept until we were just about to leave (and we almost missed it entirely).

So in conclusion? It was a pleasant and interesting way to pass 2-3 hours away from the heat and humidity of mid-day Singapore. Given the unconventional shape, the building is not as visitor-unfriendly as you’d first expect. However, at the moment at least, it feels more like a sophisticated exhibition hall than a museum with its own mission and identity.

On my daily commute (OK, a rather pleasant walk across Adelaide’s parklands – I’m one of the lucky ones!) I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks. I find it’s a good way to broaden my reading repertoire when there are precious few hours in the day for non PhD-related reading.  Even though it’s notionally ‘downtime’, I still have a preference for listening to non-fiction and every so often there is a relationship between what I’m listening to and what I’m studying.

I recently finished the audiobook version of “Why we buy: the science of shopping” by Paco Underhill. Underhill and his company Envirosell have spent thousands of hours watching how people behave in retail environments, giving fascinating insights into how store layout, design and staffing can influence shopper behaviour and purchasing patterns. 

A lot of it is applicable to studying visitor behaviour in museums, but by way of example I’ll pick Underhill’s description of something he calls The Big Three:

• Design (the store layout and design)
• Merchandising (what’s put in the store)
• Operations (what staff do)

Underhill describes how these three aspects are completely interlinked, and that a decision about one will inevitably affect the other two. He cites an example where a drugstore chain’s store designers decided to change the shelving to a wireframe style, which was much cheaper than the more traditional display shelves. Money saved, right? Well, no. It turns out that bottles kept on slipping in the gaps in the sheving, making the displays look untidy and causing staff to spend a considerable portion of the day straightening shelves – somthing they hadn’t previously needed to do. The savings on design were soon wiped out through increased staff costs.

Underhill goes on to describe client meetings where the heads of design, operations and merchandising might all be present. He says that it’s clear that these three are normally ensconced in their own respective silos; they barely know each other; and may regard each other with suspicion – if not outright hostility. Their areas all impact each other, but decisions are not being taken in a joined-up way – leading to missed opportunities and unintended consequences.

Throughout the book, Underhill is somewhat critical of both designers and store management for not spending enough time on the shop floor, seeing how their plans work in practice – and not just and 10am on a Tuesday, but during the 4.45pm rush on the day before an important holiday. It’s this culture that allows the silos to flourish as the knock-on effects of decisions are never seen by the people who make them.

It struck me listening to this that museums have their own (very similar) version of the Big Three:

• Design (of exhibitions, circulation spaces, etc.)
• Collections (both exhibits on display and objects in storage)
• Operations (how many staff, what kind of staff, what kinds of facilities are offered, etc.)

As with the retail example, a decision about one will inevitably affect the other, for instance the following (semi) hypothetical scenarios:

• An exhibition designed on the assumption that there will be a certain staff complement, only for the staff to be cut back later on in a cost-cutting exercise
• A museum accepting a large collection from a benefactor, with an attached condition that the collection be displayed in its entirety
• A museum developing a large new interactive exhibition gallery without taking on staff with the expertise to ensure the exhibits are well maintained and can be fixed when they break down

The lessons?

1. Be mindful of organisational silos – the decisions you make will have wider ramifications than just your own department
2. Take time to see the consequences of your decisions – it’s all too easy to be ‘too busy’ to spend time just watching how things are working out on the exhibition floor.

I visited this temporary exhibition at the National Museum of Australia while visiting Canberra last week and with a free afternoon to kill:

I found the choice of title a little odd: for me at least, Ned Kelly isn’t high up on the list of things that sprint to mind when I think about the Irish in Australia. Perhaps it reflects the extent to which I paid attention (or not) in high school history, but to my mind the Kelly story is primarily an Australian one; the origins of the people involved is an incidental detail. (I wondered if it was a deliberate decision to link into (and then dissociate from) the Kelly story as a marketing ‘hook’, although from what I have since heard this wasn’t the case.)

Given my current research interests, my focus in visiting the exhibition was to think about the overall atmospherics and impressions that the space created rather than to concentrate too much on specifics or details. However, I got the distinct impression that the exhibition was designed with more of a Studier* type of visitor in mind. To be fair, these visitors were not in short supply – one older couple who entered about the same time I did stopped to carefully study every label and object; I tried to keep tabs on them during my visit but by the time I was done (some 20-25 minutes later) they were barely 1/4 of the way through the exhibition. Whether they continuted at this pace throughout the visit or run out of steam will have to remain a mystery. (In general, the exhibition did seem to be attracting an older demographic, although this could be just as much due to the fact it was a weekday afternoon.)

The exhibition’s layout was broadly thematic, with themes presented in a rough chronological order: arriving, settling in, etc., culminating in a display of more recent Irish migrants and the ongoing sense of shared identity with both the old country and the new. There were also displays dedicated to the Irish contributions to different facets of Australian life, such as politics, agriculture, sport, entertainment and so on. Another strong theme, obviously, was the role of Catholicism in shaping the outlooks of Irish migrants, the perception of Irish migrants by other Australians, and attitudes to political events unfolding back in the old country. Certain chapters in Australian history with strong Irish links, such as the Kelly Gang, Burke & Wills exhibition and the Eureka Stockade, had their own dedicated mini-exhibition areas.

The exhibition was very object-rich and while some of the objects were organised to illustrate specific stories or reflect the life of a certain key personality, there was no obvious logic to the juxtaposition of other displays. I gather this was a deliberate choice, but sometimes this approach a little unnerving as I’m not sure if there is meant to be some broader message that I’m somehow failing to ‘get’.

There was a seating area roughly in the middle of the exhibtion area with four comfy swivel chairs, each with an iPad (built into a rigid frame) allowing you to select different music, audio recordings, letters home and so forth (a good use of off-the-shelf technology). Speakers embedded into the chairs worked well, providing good sound but not interfering with other seated users. I liked that the swivel chairs meant you could choose which part of the gallery you wished to overlook while you listened. One downside was that the chairs were definitely a single-user experience – fine as a solo visitor like me, but I noticed couples having to either take turns or with one person standing leaning over the chair to be in aural range of the speakers. Maybe it would have been a good idea to make one of the chairs  double-width to allow shared listening.

As I mentioned before, I was primarily looking at the exhibition from an atmospheric perspective, and the thing that struck me was how dark the space was**. The ceiling and walls of the NMA’s temporary exhibition space are painted black, enveloping the space in a sense of gloom which is only penetrated by strategically placed track lighting (in a ceiling which is probably about 4-5 metres in height).

I find such spaces inherently fatiguing and a bit claustrophobic, making it difficult for me to focus on the displays and ensuring I’m ready to call it a day after about 20-30 minutes. (Other people I’ve spoken to are less bothered by low light levels- I’d be interested to find out whether I’m in the majority or minority on this one.) On a more practical level, the fact that the graphics are lit from a single source sometimes meant that you have to be careful not to cast a shadow on the bit you’re trying to read. This was a particular problem for graphics on any horizontal or near-horizontal surface.

Also, looking from an atmospheric perspective, there was (with some exceptions) little clear visual signposting of different thematic areas which you could determine at a glance if you were looking to dip in and out of content rather than go through the exhibition systematically. In some areas it wasn’t immediately apparent where one theme stopped and another started.  I would have preferred a bit more of a content hierarchy with a few more intermediate level take-home messages, and suspect that such an approach might even have encouraged me to look closer at the objects. In other words, a bit of  a top-down approach (i.e. higher level, big-picture messages to hook you in), to balance the object-led approach which is more bottom-up.

At the end of the exhibition was a large reading area and facility for tracing your Irish roots. Plus of course the obligatory gift shop. But by this stage, having no Irish ancestry that I know of, my visit was done and I made a welcome return to the Canberra afternoon sunshine.

*Studier in the sense of the ‘Streaker, Stroller and Studier’ characterisation of different kinds of visitors.

**Someone will probably point out that the low light levels are for conservation purposes. However, I wonder how many of the objects in this particular exhibition are really so light sensitive as to warrant this approach, particularly given it is a temporary exhibition. Conservators may be horrified at the thought, but I do think it is time to revisit the evidence concerning light levels and object care, to see if we’re getting the balance right in this regard.