Beverly Serrell and Katherine Whitney cover the essentials of the processes of exhibit label planning, writing, design, and production. In this third edition, Serrell’s classic guide to writing interpretive exhibit labels is updated to include new voices, current scholarship and the unique issues the museum field is grappling with in the 21st century. With high quality photographs and new sections, this edition is more accessible and easier to use for all museum professionals, from label writers to museum directors to exhibit designers.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition The Art of the Qur'an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul, held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., October 15, 2016-February 20, 2017.
“It never occurred to me while growing up that art is an industry involving countless jobs, so if this book helps shed light to just one kid that it is a viable career option, then it has done its job, as art is indescribably important!” —Oliver Jeffers, Artist and Illustrator “This book so beautifully explains to kids what goes into making an art exhibition. It’s not just about an artist hanging something on a wall for people to see: it’s so much more lively, layered, and community-driven. Even I learned a ton about what truly goes into a fantastic art show!” —Joy Cho, Author and Founder of Oh Joy! “I wish I’d had this book when I was a kid! I always wanted my art to be in a big museum one day but, growing up in a small town, that just seemed impossible. Making a Great Exhibition is a beautifully illustrated behind-the-scenes peek at exactly how art makes its way from an artist’s mind to the big white walls of a fancy gallery. Turns out, there are a lot of people, with some very cool jobs, who make the magic happen—and any book that shows kids (and parents!) they can grow up to have a career in the arts is okay by me!” —Danielle Krysa, The Jealous Curator An exciting insight into the workings of artists and museums, Making a Great Exhibition is a colorful and playful introduction geared to children ages 3-7 How does an artist make a sculpture or a painting? What tools do they use? What happens to the artwork next? This fun, inside look at the life of an artwork shows the journey of two artists’ work from studio to exhibition. Stopping along the way we meet colorful characters—curators, photographers, shippers, museum visitors, and more! Both illustrator and author were raised in the art world, spending their time in studios, doing homework in museum offices, and going to special openings. They have teamed up to share their experiences and love for this often mysterious world to a young audience. London-based illustrator Rose Blake is best known for her work in A History of Pictures for Children, by David Hockney and Martin Gayford, which has been a worldwide success. Author Doro Globus brings her love for the arts and kids together with this fun journey.
Winner of the 2018 Ontario Museum Association Award of Excellence Winner of the 2019 Canadian Museum Association Award of Outstanding Achievement in the Research - Cultural Heritage Category Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations is a concise, useful guide to developing effective and memorable museum exhibits. The book is full of information, guidelines, tips, and concrete examples drawn from the author’s years of experience as a curator and exhibit developer in the United States and Canada. Is this your first exhibit project? You will find step-by-step instructions, useful advice and plenty of examples. Are you a small museum or local historical society looking to improve your exhibits? This book will take you through how to define your audience, develop a big idea, write the text, manage the budget, design the graphics, arrange the gallery, select artifacts, and fabricate, install and evaluate the exhibit. Are you a museum studies student wanting to learn about the theory and practice of exhibit development? This book combines both and includes references to works by noted authors in the field. Written in a clear and accessible style, Creating Exhibits that Engage offers checklists of key points at the end of each chapter, a glossary of specialized terms, and photographs, drawings and charts illustrating key concepts and techniques.
"Save our post office!" This was the plea when the USPS determined to restructure or close post offices across the United States, including 76 locations in North Dakota. In response, authors Amy Phillips and Steven Bolduc set out to explore the contemporary role of post offices in North Dakota and document an essential institution. Includes a history of northern Dakota Territory and North Dakota rural postal services by Kevin Carvell and 100+ color photos by Wayne Gudmundson.
As the American Alliance of Museums’ (AAM) Standing Professional Committees Council tells us “exhibitions are the public face of museums. The effective presentation of collections and information in exhibitions is an activity unique to museums, and it is through their exhibitions that the vast majority of people know museums.” Effective Exhibit Interpretation and Design examines the impact of an integrated approach to exhibit design and development on the effective creation and support of live interpretation of exhibit messages and institutional mission. Bridal argues that the interpreters who bring these exhibitions, an institution’s mission, collections, and stories to life and the forefront of a visitor’s attention are just as vital a part of an institution’s public face, and that neglecting to give live interpretation an equal seat at the table impoverishes the ultimate visitor experience. Eight institutions collaborated with the author in examining the outcomes of approaching exhibit and live interpretation design and development collaboratively, the challenges of adding interpretation to spaces and exhibits not designed for it, and the guiding practices they have put into place. These institutions were: Imagine It! The Children's Museum of Atlanta, Minnesota History Center, The Missouri History Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, National Children’s Museum, The National Museum of American History, The Science Museum of Minnesota and The Science Museum of Virginia. Information was also shared by the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Ideal for students and professionals alike, this book uses a wide range of examples, and answers key questions in the study of how museums communicate and provides an excellent set of frameworks to investigate the complexities of communication in museums.
Exhibition environments are enticingly complex spaces: as facilitators of experience; as free-choice learning contexts; as theaters of drama; as encyclopedic warehouses of cultural and natural heritage; as two-, three- and four-dimensional storytellers; as sites for self-actualizing leisure activity. But how much do we really know about the moment-by-moment transactions that comprise the intricate experiences of visitors? To strengthen the disciplinary knowledge base supporting exhibition design, we must understand more about what ‘goes on’ as people engage with the multifaceted communication environments that are contemporary exhibition spaces. The in-depth, visitor-centered research underlying this book offers nuanced understandings of the interface between visitors and exhibition environments. Analysis of visitors’ meaning-making accounts shows that the visitor experience is contingent upon four processes: framing, resonating, channeling, and broadening. These processes are distinct, yet mutually influencing. Together they offer an evidence-based conceptual framework for understanding visitors in exhibition spaces. Museum educators, designers, interpreters, curators, researchers, and evaluators will find this framework of value in both daily practice and future planning. Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience provides museum professionals and academics with a fresh vocabulary for understanding what goes on as visitors wander around exhibitions.
Reflecting the very latest theory on diversity issues in science education, including new dialogic approaches, this volume explores the subject from a range of perspectives and draws on studies from around the world. The work discusses fundamental topics such as how we conceptualize diversity as well as examining the ways in which heterogeneous cultural constructs influence the teaching and learning of science in a range of contexts. Including numerous strategies ready for adoption by interested teachers, the book addresses the varied cultural factors that influence engagement with science education. It seeks answers to the question of why increasing numbers of students fail to connect with science education in schools and looks at the more subtle impact that students’ individually constructed identities have on the teaching and learning of science. Recognizing the diversity of its audience, the book covers differing levels and science subjects, and examines material from a range of viewpoints that include pedagogy, curricula, teacher education, learning, gender, religion, and ICT, as well as those of in-service and trainee teachers at all levels.
Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions offers an in-depth analysis of the multiple roles that exhibition graphics perform in contemporary museums and exhibitions. Drawing on a study of exhibitions that took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum of London and the Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Piehl brings together approaches from museum studies, design practice and narrative theory to examine museum exhibitions as multimodal narratives in which graphics account for one set of narrative resources. The analysis underlines the importance of aspects such as accessibility and at the same time problematises conceptualisations that focus only on the effectiveness of graphics as display device, by drawing attention to the contributions that graphics make towards the content on display and to the ways in which it is experienced in the museum space. Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions argues for a critical reading of and engagement with exhibition graphic design as part of wider debates around meaning-making in museum studies and exhibition-making practice. As such, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and students from the fields of museum and design studies. Practitioners such as exhibition designers, graphic designers, curators and other exhibition makers should also find much to interest them in the book.
