Category: Kids - Dr. Stephanie Pearson

Touch with your Eyes - Museo Histórico Municipal de Écija

10/17/2019

Making the past feel present is tough, and can be helped along with all sorts of sensory cues. In the historical museum in Écija, Spain - the Museo Histórico Municipal housed in the Palacio de Benamejí - there were several visual cues that I quite liked because they border on the tangible. One is a Roman pottery kiln reproduced in the museum at roughly half size; as the text explains, they could be up to 6 meters tall! The area of modern Écija was a prime site of Roman amphora production because the olive oil industry there was also booming, and required transport vessels to be made locally in great number. Over 20 kilns have been found between Écija and the Guadalquivir river alone, in just 25 kilometers! Being able to see the structure of a kiln, complete with a tiny paper cut-out man checking on the wares, helps to make this massive production feel more real.

Another such trick is the recurring use of a tall glass box filled with different layers of dirt serving as a timeline. The relevant dates for a specific gallery are marked on the box in each case. Along with the different colors alloted to each time period, this is a useful visual marker of the rather abstract time periods in question. Using a dirt timeline is effective not only because it is three dimensional, verging on the tangible as well as the visual, but also because it recalls the physical location of the objects when they were discovered, as well as the archaeological methods by which we learn about them.

Touchable Tapestry Technique - Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin

9/20/2019

The Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin is proud of its carpet collection. Rightly so: not only are the carpets special in themselves, but they have a tumultuous history. The permanent display that opened last year (well, permanent until it shuffles around again for the reopening of the Pergamon Museum) conveys some of how the objects came to the museum—many through private collectors involved in the "oriental" research popular in late 19th- and early 20th-century Germany—and how they fared in World War II. While the carpet exhibition is fairly traditional in its display, a couple features stood out to me. One is pictured above: large panels demonstrating three different weaving techniques. Thick colorful plastic cord is used instead of the usual fine threads to make the technique more visible. Visitors can turn each panel to see both sides and thus discover the difference between kilim and pile rugs. Namely, kilim (left) are woven such that both sides are flat, while pile rugs (with symmetrical or asymmetrical knots, center and right) result in one side being bristled with the ends of the knots poking out. It's one of the few hands-on displays in the museum, and certainly fun to play with! It's vaguely reminiscent of the weave-it-yourself activity in the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin, but better suited to the far greater number of visitors passing through the Pergamon Museum.

First Impressions - Haus Bastian, Berlin

9/5/2019

Just across the canal from Berlin’s Museum Island is a stately building that has just joined the museum family. The Haus Bastian was designed by architect David Chipperfield, like the Neues Museum and the brand new James-Simon-Galerie that it faces across the water. The Bastian family long used this lofty building as a gallery of modern and contemporary art—last year I got to see its last show, which included Wim Wenders’ photographs and Dan Flavin’s lights. Now, however, the family has donated the building to Berlin’s state museums for use as an educational center. It celebrated its opening two nights ago with a first glimpse at the spaces and materials available for experience-hungry kids, families, adults, and teachers.

One of the current programs is titled "One to one? Pictures and Copies" (Eins zu eins? Von Bildern und Abbildern). Kids are invited to partake in "Project Days" exploring form through clay and plaster impressions, sometimes of their own bodies. The project materials include little busts of Nefertiti (above), miniatures based on the Neues Museum’s blockbuster portrait of the ancient Egyptian queen. Exhibiting multiple tiny white copies of the portrait is a playful way to draw attention to its physical characteristics: these Nefertitis are not like the original, not the face to launch a thousand posters and coffee mugs—but physical things with certain lines, curves, and volumes. (Replicas were also used in stimulating ways in this show.) The arrangement of the busts in various positions emphasizes this even more. In groups of four, they form a pattern that obscures the uniqueness and importance of The One Irreplaceable Treasure. Upside-down, the busts turn into weird forms like Wall-E or a large rubber stamp with an offset handle. Playing with museum objects like this builds visual skills and creativity—just what this center hopes to do in many other ways as well. I’m eager to see how this endeavor proceeds.

Music you can actually hear — Landesmuseum Hannover

3/7/2019

Another element of the Landesmuseum Hannover's ethnographic displays that I quite liked was this wall of musical instruments from Sumatra and Papua New Guinea. It's not only a beautifully minimalist, vertical display—an unusually artistic layout for such practical objects—but it is brought to life by recordings of each instrument at the touch of a button. Seated at the white podium, you can put an earpiece to your ear and select an instrument from the diagram to listen to. Watching two girls do this together, taking turns choosing, was a sight to warm any curator's heart! Plus, this display is in the same room as the complete gamelan instrument ensemble, which is even used in concerts. Now that's really bringing the displays to life!

Weave-it-Yourself and Women's Studies - Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin

1/16/2019

Berlin's Museum of European Cultures (Museum Europäischer Kulturen), whose ethnographic collections spread over an impressive range, currently has an exhibition on wool. I was eager to see it primarily because the subject seems a hard sell for the public; how can it be presented in a lively way? Secondly, cloth culture looms large (ha!) in both of my main projects right now. Luxury textiles in the ancient Mediterranean are one touchstone of my book-in-progress; and textile production as a female activity is a current focus of my gender studies research, connected to my role as Women's Representative in two departments.

The exhibition turned out to have several tricks up its sleeve. (The puns just won't stop!) I quite liked the rack of woolen knitwear hung from the ceiling (above) as a way to invigorate the space and use that lofty ceiling. The wall graphic of a thread connecting the exhibition exponents is a good idea, although I admit I only noticed it too late—among other things, it visually links demo videos to otherwise inscrutable woolworking devices which I noodled over a while before realizing that the explanation was just a step away.

My absolute favorite part of the show, however, is the DIY weaving station (above; detail below). This was the perfect way to solidify some knowledge of the weaving process. Hands-on activities are underused educational devices for adults! We all have a bit of kinesthetic learner in us. Using the provided tablets loaded with demo videos of knitting, weaving, crocheting, and embroidering, I got a 1-minute overview of some weaving techniques and tried it out immediately. As you can see (below), my interest was in interweaving two colors of yarn. It's harder than it looks...

This experience was enriching in several ways. I gained new respect for the skill and physical labor involved in weaving, and the fact that women worldwide have been charged with this incredibly taxing and important task for thousands of years. (This podcast episode from Classics Confidential, Weaving Women's Stories, is another fabulous way to gain appreciation for that!) In doing this tiny bit of weaving myself, I also realized how meditative weaving can be, how it keeps the hands and a part of the brain busy while allowing other parts of the brain to wander. The image of Penelope weaving every day takes on new meaning; this woman had a lot of time to think over her life, her husband, her suitors, her island kingdom. Relationships between women could be built up in the time spent spinning wool together, as demonstrated by two Hungarian grandmothers in a video in the exhibition. Suddenly the age-old (patriarchal, need it be said) associations of women spinning and knitting, plotting and gossiping makes more sense. Spinning yarns, embroidering tales—how enlightening!

It's tiny and Indecipherable...Make an animated Video about it! National Museum, Copenhagen

5/23/2018

Archaeological objects can feel inaccessible to museum visitors for several reasons: they might be old, dirty, tiny, or unglamorous. The National Museum in Copenhagen has a breathtaking collection of Bronze-Age objects which are very glamorous indeed for a specialist, but for the uninitiated could simply seem too small to be worth the bother. What are those scratchy lines on the surface of that metal blade, anyway—corrosion? No, they are fabulously whimsical drawings about the origin of the cosmos! But you have to peer very, very closely to make out the drawings, and even then they are hard to interpret.

The solution is a beautiful short animated film that plays on one wall of the gallery dedicated to the spellbinding Sun Chariot (see video clip above). The decorations on the chariot itself, as well as on knife blades, safety pins (fibulae), and other artifacts in the room, are brought to life in a cartoon showing how the mythical sun rises and sets—drawn by a horse, swallowed by a fish, and vomited back up again. Isn't archaeology fun?

The lights in the gallery change color along with the storyline, from orange in the daytime to deep blue and black at night. It's a fanciful sensory experience that really brings these objects to life again, some 3000-4000 years after they were first made.

The sun disc depicted in the decorative pins and blades at right is repeated in a large, legible drawing in the case at left.

The labels for some of the larger objects connect with the video by pointing out which part of this cosmogony, or origin myth, is depicted in the decoration.

Detail of the blade at lower left in the photo above.

Touchable Painting - Berlinische Galerie

3/23/2018

Don't we all want to touch museum objects sometimes? Even as a veteran display analyst and card-carrying art historian, I can sometimes hardly keep my hands to myself. And what about visitors who need to perceive by touch—the blind and sight-impaired? Very slowly, museums are starting to install displays that are accessible to these groups. At the Berlinische Galerie, a recent exhibition of paintings and works on paper used a new technology to make an important painting touchable: the painting was reproduced (3-D printed?) with all its surface textures, and mounted horizontally in a pedestal by a bench in front of the original. In addition, the reproduction was given extra relief in order to make the two female figures stand out from the background; their arms and shoulders were slightly raised, their chins made pointy. Visitors of any sort—sighted or not, with kids or not, art historian or not—can revel in the chance to finally put their hands on a masterpiece!

Wastewater Construction Site = Fun Park Experience - Berlin Mauerpark

3/20/2018

The building of a large drainage pipe under Berlin's Mauerpark is a triumphant example of how simple display concepts can be transformative. Rather than making yet another annoying construction zone in the city, and this one right in at the entrance to the most popular park, the organizers decided to make it an attraction in itself. They achieved this by erecting a wooden wall around the main building area and decorating it with fun and informative panels. The biggest and most iconic is the cartoon cross-section of the pipe itself (above). The pipe introduces itself through a speech bubble: "I'm a drainage pipe with a 4.4-meter diameter"! More detailed panels describe the water system in depth. Around the corner, a spin wheel with exercise challenges on it ("do 5 pushups!" etc.) is a further attraction. Most surprising of all, you can see it all and learn more on a beautiful modern website devoted to the project! Way to go, Berliner Wasserbetriebe.

Next Stop: Artifacts with Audio - Hamburg Archaeological Museum

9/12/2017

The upper floor of Hamburg's Archaeological Museum doesn't plunge the visitor into an immersive landscape as the lower floor does (subject of the last post). Rather than turning windowless walls into a black cave, this floor uses walls of windows to leverage its position on a park and pedestrian walk, bringing inside the natural light and greenery.

In one section of this airy space is an exhibit highlighting artifacts found around the museum. Arranged on a transit map of the area (similar to this room of Berlin's Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum), the objects each have a grab bar near them like those in a bus or tram—complete with the red STOP button! When you push the button, a voice from the speaker in the pedestal first announces the name of the transit stop and then tells you about the artifact found there. It's a playful and effective way to show the visitor that history really comes from the places she commutes every day. Announcing the name of the stop reinforces this, as well as the transit theme itself. And ask any five-year-old: who doesn't love pressing those buttons!?

Prehistoric Playland - Hamburg Archaeological Museum

9/8/2017

Hamburg's Archaeological Museum in Harburg is a gem. The first-floor gallery, pictured above, is relatively small but packed with wildly creative displays. An artificial dirt-and-rock floor (all glued down, safe to walk and scramble on) strikes the right tone for the prehistoric collections. Just so the dark ceiling, recalling a cave or perhaps the night sky. It's atmospheric, certainly; but more than that, the playfulness helps to emphasize the content rather than distracting from it. Who could expect otherwise from the creative team, Ravensberger Freizeit und Promotion, famous for their educational board games! Here are just a few examples:

The entrance is flanked by massive, glowing, blue-green pillars to either side. Upon closer inspection, they turn out to be towers of ice cube trays! Why? The text alongside explains how the landscape around Hamburg was carved by glacial action. Aha!

Built into the floor beside this pillar (detail below; another can be seen in the room view above) is a glass plate. It has a blue cast to all but two spots, where goggles are placed on the glass with a clear view onto the antlers, pot sherds, and other artifacts from this area. This is a strong invitation to get close and peer inside.

Another eye-catching display is a huge sardine tin, nearly two meters long, its lid peeled back to reveal the delicacies inside. Not sardines per se, but a variety of artifacts related to prehistoric fishing techniques. A pile of fish bones (bottom center) attests to their success.

A pile of TVs alight with flickering flames (right) draws attention to the section about fire: its invention, how it was first made, and how it changed eating habits for early man. But the TVs aren't just a flashy gimmick: the text points out that just as our ancestors sat around the fire at night for community and entertainment, so today we sit around the TV for similar reasons!

One of the most rewarding parts of my visit was seeing a group of four-year-olds put these displays to the test, climbing the rocks, lifting the lids, pulling and peeking and, well, engaging! (Which makes a person appreciate how kid-proof it all is, to still look new after 8 years of such rigorous testing.) My next post will turn to the second-floor gallery, quite different in atmosphere but equally creative.

Talking Objects: Roman Villa at Pully, Switzerland

4/17/2017

The brand-new archaeological museum at Pully (near Lausanne) is dedicated to an ancient Roman villa discovered at this site, overlooking Lake Leman. Fragments of fresco that decorated the villa's walls are exhibited in cases dedicated to certain themes—shown here is "Aux bains," "At the baths." Displayed within are pieces of fresco from the villa's bath complex, which was painted with marine scenes in keeping with the watery function of the rooms. Not only is the graphic design of the panels clean and bright, but the cases feature a cute pedagogical concept: small stickers on the glass are shaped like speech bubbles, some with tails pointing to fresco fragments as if they were talking! In the photo above, a painting of a fisherman seems to call out, "It's fresh, my fish is fresh! The fishing was good today." The bubbles at the top right introduce an authentic Roman recipe for fish sauce, quoting an ancient author, while the small bubble at left asks, "Did you know that fish farming was invented by the Romans?" It's a playful way to draw attention to individual objects, and particularly well-designed to engage young museum visitors.

When Your Exhibit Can Walk Away: Anne Kolb Nature Center

11/22/2015

It's a tricky task to make nature itself into an exhibition. Nature walks (in botanical gardens and model farms, for instance) often rely not on a group of objects or other predetermined set of material, but on an unpredictable troupe of actors who may or may not be on stage that day. What a challenge to present material that the visitor might not even get to see! But certain display tactics can help smooth over the possible unevenness of this living exhibition. The Anne Kolb Nature Center in Hollywood, Florida centers on a boardwalk that winds through a section of mangrove habitat. (It also has a lovely visitor's center which, when I visited, included a display of contemporary art on spiffy movable walls.) At the start of the walk, large signs with vivid pictures of the animals (above) introduce the visitor to the point of the exhibition: to VIEW the plants and animals. Further, to help the visitor engage—and to help them see the critters tucked away in their hidey-holes—the Center offers a handout with a checklist of the plants and animals one might encounter on the walk. This is an easy, effective, low-cost way to encourage visitors (especially kids) to really look, and even to try to identify the things they see. It would be fantastic as an app for mobile devices too.

Online Exhibition: #metkids at The Metropolitan Museum

10/30/2015

Screenshot of the #metkids website, an exhibition and exhibition supplement by The Metropolitan Museum.

An online (or more broadly, a digital) platform is a great solution to the layers of information embedded in any exhibition, from the large-writ headers to the digging-deeper details for specialists and the especially interested. Formatting these layers so that they are both accessible and beautiful is a challenge—one that The Metropolitan Museum met with gusto in its #metkids project. This website, although meant to introduce children to the museum's collections, is a delight for any age. The cheery red background and lively graphics are pleasing to the eye, and the simple arrangement of text with clear headers makes information easy to find. Further info can be found by clicking the terms highlighted in yellow, another easy visual cue. This site seems like a good point of reference for anyone thinking about digital presentation, be it stand-alone or supplementary to a physical (brick-and-mortar? We need a term for this) exhibition.

Simply Good Signage: Domäne Dahlem

11/14/2014

Horses and sign at Domäne Dahlem, Berlin

Horses and sign at Domäne Dahlem, Berlin

A successful display does not need a fancy new design idea or technology to be successful (indeed, sometimes those can really go awry!). Some of my favorite displays are very simple; their strength lies in being extremely well-conceived in terms of how they achieve their few basic goals. One great example is the signage at the Domäne Dahlem in Berlin, a charming set of fields and cottages meant to teach the visitor about old-time farming and artisanal trades. The signs scattered around the grounds are excellent in several simple but important respects:

They are sturdy. Look at that metal frame! The text is protected by a thick sheet of plastic (not yellowed or scratched; is that a special kind of plastic?). And the sign stands on two very firmly embedded poles. These things are equipped to stand out in the sun and snow year-round. Moreover, they have to withstand eager kindergartners running over to them, slapping them in excitement, climbing on them, and many other things I can't even imagine but the kiddies definitely can. They are up to the task! (The signs, that is — but the kiddies too.)
They clearly refer to their subject matter. Despite having to stand in the open air, and not on a wall obviously beside an object (see the previous post on botanical gardens), they are well-placed and -oriented so as to be clearly linked to their subject. The example above faces the horses and, as extra help, even shows the horses in a drawing.
They start with perfect "hook" questions. You can imagine a kid and parent approaching the horse sign and the parent beginning to read the yellow box: "If it whinnies, then it's a...." "HORSE!" replies the kid. I really think this isn't just my fantasy; the sign is begging for this interaction. As for the sign below, which explains nitrogen binding among legumes, I had just wondered aloud what was growing in this big bushy field when I came across the sign that begins with a green box, "So what's growing here?" I call that perfect.
The drawings are simple. Too often the graphics in signage get complicated or rely on colors that have long since faded. Not here! A basic but beautiful line drawing gets the point across in both signs. Even as a lover of color, I far prefer this style for clarity.

Legume sign at Domäne Dahlem, Berlin

Legume sign at Domäne Dahlem, Berlin

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