In article <[log in to unmask]>, Andrea
Hauenschild <[log in to unmask]> writes
>Hello,
>I am preparing a permanent exhibition on the history of a city. I wonder if
>anyone out there can provide me with references to some innovative examples,
>that worked well with the public. I am also interested in knowing about
>historical exhibitions conceived as an adventure/discovery game.
>Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge with me.
>
Blowing my own trumpet: at Buckinghamshire County Museum, we had the
challenge of a county rather than a city.  We rejected the idea of
telling the 'story' of Bucks as a linear thing, and of separating
'natural history' from 'geology' from 'archaeology' from 'social
history' from 'art': we came up with a modular structure/concept, where
we focus down on things like 'wood' - an important natural resource, a
wildlife habitat, the source material for industries.

A city museum might focus on such themes as transport, who's in charge?
(and/or, who pays?), urban wildlife (including bugs), housing, women's
lives, diet, and what happens when you pull the toilet chain?  Which you
choose should, I believe, be largely influenced by your collections,
what you can collect, and what you can borrow from other institutions.

There are also modules which are more typical of the separated galleries
they replace: but we are so used to working together as curators, that
'farming' spends a lot of time talking about the wildlife
encouraged/discouraged by various farming practices, and 'romans and
celts' uses comparative material from the present, and so on...

The idea is that one module at least gets replaced each year, but we've
had dreadful cutbacks (like loosing our Education Officer), and hadn't
the money to complete the refit (my major challege is a textile gallery
which can't be used to display textiles bigger than a 3 year olds dress
...), so the changing modules don't look like happening, yet (we've been
open for 15 months).

Some of our 'old' audiences, and some people who are used to visiting
museums, get a little lost for five minutes ... they say 'but where's
the Rural Life gallery?' or 'I want to see the geology', but when it
sinks in that a particular class of objects aren't grouped together,
they understand it ... and no-one's complained that it's worse or
difficult to understand.  We've had lots of positive comments: both from
those who say 'Normally, I don't like museums ...' and from those who
say 'Well, I was shocked at first when I saw what you've done with
(insert pet subject area here), but ...'

On the down side, some periods of history have inevitably not been
covered (the Civil War being the one most often pointed out).  But we
have just as many complaints that we've missed out a 'theme' (transport
being the one most often mentioned).  Also, it might be argued that the
'past' we present is one long, undifferentiated 'yesterday', although
that isn't a criticism that has been voiced, and I think we've over-come
it by using objects from a _lot_ of different periods (for example, the
'cutting/shaping tools' drawer in Wood contains a bronze-age axe, an
1800s spoke-shave and a contemporary 'surform').  We eventually chose
real-number dates (e.g. '1880s', 'about 3,000 BC'), but we were unable
to find any academic research which says people find '1800s' more
understandable than '19th century' or 'Victorian'.

Please do come by and see us! (Church Street, Aylesbury, telephone +44
1296 331441 for opening hours, parking directions, etc, etc)
--
Pat Reynolds
[log in to unmask]
Keeper of Social History, Buckinghamshire County Museum
   "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Prattchet)