Exhibition design is dictated by myriad factors, including the story that is being told, the visitor journey and, of course, the physical space that will house it.
For touring exhibitions and museums without permanent homes or spaces, design is therefore a process that will never be completed. Each new home brings curators back to the beginning of the process, deciding once again how the exhibition should occupy the space and what the visitor experience should be.
There are many advantages to having no fixed abode, not least being free of the financial burden of maintaining a permanent location. Many temporary exhibitions tend to cover contemporary issues, and as such they have the flexibility to take more risks with design.
That flexibility, however, is both the strength and weakness of museums without permanent homes, says Sue McAlpine, the curator of the Migration Museum, which occupies a former fire-engine workshop in Lambeth that is due to be demolished later this year.
“We can be very flexible as we aren’t tied to a collection or any restrictions,” McAlpine says. “And we are only here for a short time, so we can build walls and bang things into them and know that it doesn’t matter.
“But every time we develop a new exhibition, we have to start completely from scratch,” she continues. “We have no storage facilities at all, so we have to borrow objects, make stuff and buy things on eBay where needed. When the exhibition ends, we have to dispose of it all, and that is a challenge in itself.”
As well as not being able to start a collection of its own, which it could draw on for future exhibitions, the Migration Museum is not Accredited, so it is not able to borrow objects.
McAlpine adds: “It can be difficult not have the basic requirements: even keeping a case is difficult. But not being beholden to a collection or having to follow traditional rule and regulations is very liberating.”
This different approach to presenting exhibitions is seen in its latest work, Room To Breathe, which is a series of rooms telling the personal stories of starting a life in a new land. The team constructed walls to create the rooms, and has furnished them with interactive objects to encourage visitors to explore.
“It is interactive and immersive,” says McAlpine. “We have put in a cafe to encourage people to come and sit, think and discuss.”
Building exhibitions on personal stories is a technique that has also been explored by the Museum of Homelessness, which is also yet to find a permanent building. According to co-founder Matt Turtle, it has used theatre techniques, such as verbatim interviews, to showcase stories and to overcome the challenge of how to animate the issue.
“Playing interviews and using objects that have been loaned to us helps to draw focus away from the individuals and instead direct it towards the issue of homelessness,” says Turtle.
The museum has also used experiential theatre to look at the themes of health, homelessness and dehumanisation. Visitors explored an NHS-style waiting room, which was built to feel awkward, before moving into a facilitated discussion. Excerpts of a film called Objectified, produced by the museum, was also shown.
James Brett is founder of the Museum of Everything, which is described as the world’s first and only wandering institution for untrained, unintentional, undiscovered and unclassifiable artists. He believes the strength of new spaces is being able to build on your previous exhibitions, while adapting to a new space.
“Finding new layouts is one of the pressurised joys,” he explains. “We work deductively when we do a show, so we might take 100 works and use 70 but then add others we hadn’t thought of. We try not to be definitive, as we explain to our partners at the beginning. There is an improvisational quality to it.”
Creating atmosphere
Creating the right atmosphere is also essential to owning a new space, says Brett. To do this, he uses furniture to balance the feeling of the rooms. Lighting, however, can be “hugely problematic”, and it is often not possible to light everything well.
“We use domestic lighting as we often curate spaces that have a domestic scale. We also use pendant ceiling lights, even if there is a rig.
“If you are working on a low budget then you just have to be inventive. Sometimes we would rather use a cheap battery-powered clip-on light that helps visitors engage emotionally than an expensive Christie’s-style spot just because it looks better.”
For the Museum of Happiness, which previously had a permanent space in London’s Camden but now pops up every Friday evening at 42 Acres, a co-working space in Shoreditch, two of the biggest challenges are communicating what it is and when it exists.
While the Museum of Happiness has exhibited in many locations since its first pop-up in January 2015, including Sydney and Nepal, its exhibition design is currently limited to what the museum’s co-founder, Victoria Johnson, can store in her shed and fit into an Uber XL when it is time to travel.
“Everything has to be portable so that does cramp our creativity a bit,” she admits. “Our old display fixed to walls, but that is not really practical when you are touring, so we have shifted to roller banners. We have an amazing designer who has made them really playful.”
For those working in temporary spaces, it helps to be brave and embrace new ideas.
“Throw a lot of the old ideas out of the window and be open to new ideas and people,” McAlpine says. “Take on the unexplored and do the things you were not allowed to do elsewhere.
“And be open to welcoming people who might visit you just because you are not a traditional museum.”
For touring exhibitions and museums without permanent homes or spaces, design is therefore a process that will never be completed. Each new home brings curators back to the beginning of the process, deciding once again how the exhibition should occupy the space and what the visitor experience should be.
There are many advantages to having no fixed abode, not least being free of the financial burden of maintaining a permanent location. Many temporary exhibitions tend to cover contemporary issues, and as such they have the flexibility to take more risks with design.
That flexibility, however, is both the strength and weakness of museums without permanent homes, says Sue McAlpine, the curator of the Migration Museum, which occupies a former fire-engine workshop in Lambeth that is due to be demolished later this year.
“We can be very flexible as we aren’t tied to a collection or any restrictions,” McAlpine says. “And we are only here for a short time, so we can build walls and bang things into them and know that it doesn’t matter.
“But every time we develop a new exhibition, we have to start completely from scratch,” she continues. “We have no storage facilities at all, so we have to borrow objects, make stuff and buy things on eBay where needed. When the exhibition ends, we have to dispose of it all, and that is a challenge in itself.”
As well as not being able to start a collection of its own, which it could draw on for future exhibitions, the Migration Museum is not Accredited, so it is not able to borrow objects.
McAlpine adds: “It can be difficult not have the basic requirements: even keeping a case is difficult. But not being beholden to a collection or having to follow traditional rule and regulations is very liberating.”
This different approach to presenting exhibitions is seen in its latest work, Room To Breathe, which is a series of rooms telling the personal stories of starting a life in a new land. The team constructed walls to create the rooms, and has furnished them with interactive objects to encourage visitors to explore.
“It is interactive and immersive,” says McAlpine. “We have put in a cafe to encourage people to come and sit, think and discuss.”
Building exhibitions on personal stories is a technique that has also been explored by the Museum of Homelessness, which is also yet to find a permanent building. According to co-founder Matt Turtle, it has used theatre techniques, such as verbatim interviews, to showcase stories and to overcome the challenge of how to animate the issue.
“Playing interviews and using objects that have been loaned to us helps to draw focus away from the individuals and instead direct it towards the issue of homelessness,” says Turtle.
The museum has also used experiential theatre to look at the themes of health, homelessness and dehumanisation. Visitors explored an NHS-style waiting room, which was built to feel awkward, before moving into a facilitated discussion. Excerpts of a film called Objectified, produced by the museum, was also shown.
James Brett is founder of the Museum of Everything, which is described as the world’s first and only wandering institution for untrained, unintentional, undiscovered and unclassifiable artists. He believes the strength of new spaces is being able to build on your previous exhibitions, while adapting to a new space.
“Finding new layouts is one of the pressurised joys,” he explains. “We work deductively when we do a show, so we might take 100 works and use 70 but then add others we hadn’t thought of. We try not to be definitive, as we explain to our partners at the beginning. There is an improvisational quality to it.”
Creating atmosphere
Creating the right atmosphere is also essential to owning a new space, says Brett. To do this, he uses furniture to balance the feeling of the rooms. Lighting, however, can be “hugely problematic”, and it is often not possible to light everything well.
“We use domestic lighting as we often curate spaces that have a domestic scale. We also use pendant ceiling lights, even if there is a rig.
“If you are working on a low budget then you just have to be inventive. Sometimes we would rather use a cheap battery-powered clip-on light that helps visitors engage emotionally than an expensive Christie’s-style spot just because it looks better.”
For the Museum of Happiness, which previously had a permanent space in London’s Camden but now pops up every Friday evening at 42 Acres, a co-working space in Shoreditch, two of the biggest challenges are communicating what it is and when it exists.
While the Museum of Happiness has exhibited in many locations since its first pop-up in January 2015, including Sydney and Nepal, its exhibition design is currently limited to what the museum’s co-founder, Victoria Johnson, can store in her shed and fit into an Uber XL when it is time to travel.
“Everything has to be portable so that does cramp our creativity a bit,” she admits. “Our old display fixed to walls, but that is not really practical when you are touring, so we have shifted to roller banners. We have an amazing designer who has made them really playful.”
For those working in temporary spaces, it helps to be brave and embrace new ideas.
“Throw a lot of the old ideas out of the window and be open to new ideas and people,” McAlpine says. “Take on the unexplored and do the things you were not allowed to do elsewhere.
“And be open to welcoming people who might visit you just because you are not a traditional museum.”
