100% Cotton, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool
Compact, tightly focused, succinct but informative, this was everything a temporary exhibition should be. And all washed down by those most elusive of museum virtues: wit and humour.
100% Cotton takes the potentially amorphous and far-ranging story of cotton, holds it up to scrutiny and looks at it from four distinct perspectives - cultivation, trading, manufacture and cotton goods. Throughout, the exhibition is enlivened by surprising facts, acute observation and stylish interpretation.
I went with some insider knowledge of the cotton towns of Lancashire, and came away with a picture of cotton as a global commodity, a burning sense of injustice about the iniquities of world trade past and present (an old story frequently retold), and some sparkling ideas for enhancing my increasingly meagre wardrobe.
So where to begin? With planting the seed, of course. The seed that belongs to the same family as the marshmallow and the lavatera, favourite of many an English cottage garden. What was made clear was that this most simple of acts, even in a so-called global economy, varies enormously from continent to continent.
The video of the highly mechanised, heavily subsidised, pesticide-herbicide-defoliant-fuelled farming in the US, contrasted wildly with the quasi-stone age version of the same practice in west Africa. Neither version was appealing.
There was no interpretation to accompany the video, but this simple juxtaposition was provocative in the extreme. In fact, video and interpretive panels carried the bulk of the story, with objects playing a largely secondary role.
Liverpool itself was the hub of the cotton trade, taking in raw cotton, largely from the US, and distributing it to mills throughout Lancashire. Finished cloth and garments would find their way back to Liverpool for distribution throughout the Empire, often to the places where the cotton was originally grown. Cloth manufacture in major export markets such as India was often restricted or prohibited by the British government.
In this early effort at globalisation, with the same trading imbalances that you would recognise today, vast fortunes were made, typically on the back of much vaster misery - slavery, economic servitude and the destruction of indigenous cloth manufacturing were just a few of the more unsavoury by-products.
But as with many empires the business case was far from compelling, and the inability of the Lancashire mills to maintain their global monopoly of cotton production (accelerated by Gandhi's boycott of British manufactured goods), meant that signs of a decline in trade were already visible at the beginning of the 20th century.
These are substantial issues, but the exhibition is light of touch, and manages a difficult balancing act of opening up highly contentious debates without overwhelming with detail. What other exhibition could provoke a discussion on GM crops, global futures markets and Vivienne Westwood bondage shorts (lightweight, breathable and just right for summer)?
The editorial control of the story is confident and this is reflected in the graphic panels, where the text explains complex issues with a deceptive simplicity.
Only occasionally does the text opt for safety. 'In some countries children are involved in tending and harvesting the cotton,' probably glosses over a multitude of contemporary sins.
Interestingly, the exhibition seemed much more comfortable about illustrating the appalling working conditions of the past, and was quite ready to refer to the lung disease byssinosis, which was caused by the cotton dust, and which affected many of Lancashire's cotton workers.
Clarity is at the core of the success of the exhibition. Occupying a single, large square room, split into four zones to reflect the four major themes, navigation and flow through the exhibition are effortless.
Panels made of cotton (what else?) use a two-deck headline in caps followed by paragraphs generally of three lines, each in upper and lower case. This simple hierarchy of information is unobtrusive and reinforces the clarity of the writing.
And this being Liverpool, the exhibition was not without a splash of wit. An unwary step sets off all manner of squelching as you find a comedy cotton pest at your feet; an interactive (first week, everything still working), called Cotton Pickin' Bugs, challenges you to protect the cotton from stink bugs, boll weevils and cotton aphids armed only with your fingertip.
A video reconstruction of a conversation between a Victorian clerk and his broker boss follows those traditional interpretive lines that illustrate the differences between toffs and workers: the clerk, in response to an enquiry about his family, says: 'I've been having some trouble with my son Gerrard. He's obsessed by association football.'
Such was Liverpool's role at the centre of this global trade that the rules governing modern international cotton trading are based on those developed by the Liverpool Cotton Association, later to become the International Cotton Association. Liverpool merchants became so prosperous that their virtual monopoly of the raw cotton trade attracted local rivalry.
In fact, the city fathers of Manchester built the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894 in order to break Liverpool's stranglehold on the trade. They were largely unsuccessful and Manchester had to be content with remaining the centre for the trade in cloth and finished goods.
The exhibition finishes by looking at the different ways in which cotton is used around the world, including a Peruvian headdress and a Hausa robe from west Africa, although these items seemed a bit of an afterthought and were crammed in the darkest corner of the room.
More space was given to cotton clothing from the UK, a day dress in printed cotton muslin from 1858 sitting happily next to the aforementioned shorts and the odd celebrity-signed T-shirt (don't get too excited, think Atomic Kitten).
I didn't expect to, but I learned a lot at this exhibition. As an introduction to the impact of global economics and a vision of what might lie behind those ever-cheaper high street clothing prices, you couldn't do better.
Michael Wright is the head of marketing at the Museums Association
Project data
Cost: £200,000
Main supporters: Plexus Cotton, Liverpool Cotton Research Corporation, Cargill Cotton, Wakefield Inspection Services, Weil Brothers & Stern, Cotton Industry War Memorial Trust
Exhibition design: NML design team
Exhibition ends: 4 June 2006
Compact, tightly focused, succinct but informative, this was everything a temporary exhibition should be. And all washed down by those most elusive of museum virtues: wit and humour.
100% Cotton takes the potentially amorphous and far-ranging story of cotton, holds it up to scrutiny and looks at it from four distinct perspectives - cultivation, trading, manufacture and cotton goods. Throughout, the exhibition is enlivened by surprising facts, acute observation and stylish interpretation.
I went with some insider knowledge of the cotton towns of Lancashire, and came away with a picture of cotton as a global commodity, a burning sense of injustice about the iniquities of world trade past and present (an old story frequently retold), and some sparkling ideas for enhancing my increasingly meagre wardrobe.
So where to begin? With planting the seed, of course. The seed that belongs to the same family as the marshmallow and the lavatera, favourite of many an English cottage garden. What was made clear was that this most simple of acts, even in a so-called global economy, varies enormously from continent to continent.
The video of the highly mechanised, heavily subsidised, pesticide-herbicide-defoliant-fuelled farming in the US, contrasted wildly with the quasi-stone age version of the same practice in west Africa. Neither version was appealing.
There was no interpretation to accompany the video, but this simple juxtaposition was provocative in the extreme. In fact, video and interpretive panels carried the bulk of the story, with objects playing a largely secondary role.
Liverpool itself was the hub of the cotton trade, taking in raw cotton, largely from the US, and distributing it to mills throughout Lancashire. Finished cloth and garments would find their way back to Liverpool for distribution throughout the Empire, often to the places where the cotton was originally grown. Cloth manufacture in major export markets such as India was often restricted or prohibited by the British government.
In this early effort at globalisation, with the same trading imbalances that you would recognise today, vast fortunes were made, typically on the back of much vaster misery - slavery, economic servitude and the destruction of indigenous cloth manufacturing were just a few of the more unsavoury by-products.
But as with many empires the business case was far from compelling, and the inability of the Lancashire mills to maintain their global monopoly of cotton production (accelerated by Gandhi's boycott of British manufactured goods), meant that signs of a decline in trade were already visible at the beginning of the 20th century.
These are substantial issues, but the exhibition is light of touch, and manages a difficult balancing act of opening up highly contentious debates without overwhelming with detail. What other exhibition could provoke a discussion on GM crops, global futures markets and Vivienne Westwood bondage shorts (lightweight, breathable and just right for summer)?
The editorial control of the story is confident and this is reflected in the graphic panels, where the text explains complex issues with a deceptive simplicity.
Only occasionally does the text opt for safety. 'In some countries children are involved in tending and harvesting the cotton,' probably glosses over a multitude of contemporary sins.
Interestingly, the exhibition seemed much more comfortable about illustrating the appalling working conditions of the past, and was quite ready to refer to the lung disease byssinosis, which was caused by the cotton dust, and which affected many of Lancashire's cotton workers.
Clarity is at the core of the success of the exhibition. Occupying a single, large square room, split into four zones to reflect the four major themes, navigation and flow through the exhibition are effortless.
Panels made of cotton (what else?) use a two-deck headline in caps followed by paragraphs generally of three lines, each in upper and lower case. This simple hierarchy of information is unobtrusive and reinforces the clarity of the writing.
And this being Liverpool, the exhibition was not without a splash of wit. An unwary step sets off all manner of squelching as you find a comedy cotton pest at your feet; an interactive (first week, everything still working), called Cotton Pickin' Bugs, challenges you to protect the cotton from stink bugs, boll weevils and cotton aphids armed only with your fingertip.
A video reconstruction of a conversation between a Victorian clerk and his broker boss follows those traditional interpretive lines that illustrate the differences between toffs and workers: the clerk, in response to an enquiry about his family, says: 'I've been having some trouble with my son Gerrard. He's obsessed by association football.'
Such was Liverpool's role at the centre of this global trade that the rules governing modern international cotton trading are based on those developed by the Liverpool Cotton Association, later to become the International Cotton Association. Liverpool merchants became so prosperous that their virtual monopoly of the raw cotton trade attracted local rivalry.
In fact, the city fathers of Manchester built the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894 in order to break Liverpool's stranglehold on the trade. They were largely unsuccessful and Manchester had to be content with remaining the centre for the trade in cloth and finished goods.
The exhibition finishes by looking at the different ways in which cotton is used around the world, including a Peruvian headdress and a Hausa robe from west Africa, although these items seemed a bit of an afterthought and were crammed in the darkest corner of the room.
More space was given to cotton clothing from the UK, a day dress in printed cotton muslin from 1858 sitting happily next to the aforementioned shorts and the odd celebrity-signed T-shirt (don't get too excited, think Atomic Kitten).
I didn't expect to, but I learned a lot at this exhibition. As an introduction to the impact of global economics and a vision of what might lie behind those ever-cheaper high street clothing prices, you couldn't do better.
Michael Wright is the head of marketing at the Museums Association
Project data
Cost: £200,000
Main supporters: Plexus Cotton, Liverpool Cotton Research Corporation, Cargill Cotton, Wakefield Inspection Services, Weil Brothers & Stern, Cotton Industry War Memorial Trust
Exhibition design: NML design team
Exhibition ends: 4 June 2006
