ADAD9311 Designing the Experience

Exhibitions and Beyond

Assessment 01

ASSESSMENT SUMMARY:

Title: Developing exhibition content (with analysis of its context)

Weight: 40%

Assessment Type: Design Studio Work Submission Requirements:

Group Work: No

Where to Submit: Turnitin (Moodle) Due: Week 5

Assessment Description and feedback process:

The practice of exhibition design is a highly engaging and often ephemeral experiential format, that has evolved to become an integral part of our sociocultural activity.

Contemporary exhibition design builds on thousands of years of human experience in creative storytelling through art, the display of meaningful objects, and the shaping of spaces for contemplation, focused attention, and heightened experience. Every decision in an exhibition design is informed by this history – whether we are aware of it or not. The changing paradigms and models of display embody, perform, and reinforce different ways of knowing and understanding the world, as well as how knowledge is conceived. They also represent the semantics of these epistemologies—how their creators choose to represent and communicate knowledge and power.

Informed by display paradigms discussed in class, this assessment task asks you to ideate the concept and curate the content for a small exhibition to be held in a Sydney-based cultural institution. With consideration to the structure, sequencing, and display of works, you will devise and design a range of texts that support your exhibition ideas.

Feedback will be provided on a regular basis through discussion with peers and your tutor. Summative assessment and feedback on this assessment task will be provided digitally.

How to complete this assessment:

Exhibitions are a highly structured visual communication medium. Central to every exhibition is an interpretation plan and approach for how the content and complexity of information is to be communicated.  For this assessment you will develop a curatorial concept for a Sydney-based institution, exploring its identity and relevant precedents as well as analysing and proposing display strategies fitting for your exhibition.

For this assessment you will develop a curatorial concept as well as explore and analyse display strategies, precedents, and institutional identities. In response to the historic and contemporary display paradigms presented in class you will also apply insights and provide context to those employed or referenced (invoked or subverted) within your exhibition.

Your project report will showcase a range of descriptive and interpretive texts that communicate the scope and stories of your exhibition to a range of audiences, incorporating both practical and thematic information.

Steps to follow:

1. Select a Venue: Choose one of the following venues for your exhibition:

•    The Australia Museum                                          •     Elizabeth Bay House or Vaucluse House

•    The Powerhouse Museum                                     •     Firstdraft

•    White Rabbit Gallery                                             •    Australian Design Centre

2. Curate Content

Research and select 8-12 artworks, objects, or design projects for inclusion in an exhibition to be featured at the selected venue. The ideas communicated in the exhibition and the format underpinning it should be your original concept. Artworks or artefacts can be sourced from anywhere; however, you are encouraged to review the collections of a cultural institutions both within Australia and Internationally to help determine the exhibition content.

3. Consider the Experience

Design the format, structure and sequence of your exhibition and identify key display paradigms to employ or reference in the exhibition space.

4. Craft the Communication Methods

Produce the following texts that communicate your exhibition scope and stories:

•     Exhibition Concept Precis – including curatorial rationale, analysis of institutional identity, approach to display and narrative strategy

•     Object list (for curators/conservators/designers etc)

•     Exhibition text example (found in the exhibition)

Choose from an introductory panel; theme panel; or, extended object label for an object/artwork

•     Short/standard object labels for all objects/artworks]

•    Audience feedback document

•     Formal essay (1000 words – academic writing with references) responding to the question:

Which display paradigms were employed in the design/curation of your proposed exhibition?

With reference to your chosen venue’s identity and the historic and contemporary display paradigms addressed in class, consider how and why your exhibition employs, invokes or subverts these exhibition- making conventions and techniques.

With the exhibition texts, ensure you have considered:

•     Institutional context

•     Graphic design (font, size, colour, materiality)

•     Physical context (location and installation method)

•    Audience context (adjustments specific to target audiences incl. content, readability, accessibility)

It is important to consider both the hierarchy and clarity of information conveyed within the texts as well as the layout of the texts themselves. Decisions on graphic design elements such as font selection, text size and formatting and the relationship between text and visuals are critical to clear communication of your exhibition ideas and the significant objects and stories contained within it. Interactive prompts or technology-based communication methods can be represented. You may wish to include mockups for QR codes, or show how an online audience survey would appear to the user, or an idea for audience information that uses mobile devices. Note: a visual representation of the format is sufficient; you do not need to do the programming.

Course Learning Outcomes being assessed in this task:

1. Apply research methods to inform. a response to the requirements of a design brief

2. Examine and critically analyse the relationship between key stakeholders

3. Demonstrate design practice as an interdisciplinary and collaborative process

Submission Requirements:

Electronic Submission:

Please submit your design project to Turnitin (Moodle) as an optimized pdf file by

11.55pm AEDST on day of scheduled class in Week 5. Your pdf file must be under 40mb.

Please use the following naming protocol:

zXXXXXXX _surname_firstname_ADAD9311_task01.pdf

Please ensure that your submission is properly submitted and not left in draft form.

Note: it is critical that you maintain documentation of all your research, experimentation and iteration including images from your analogue process journal. Be prepared to share versions or elements of  this throughout the course.

It is also important to actively engage, participate and contribute to group and individual activities.