Cyclopedia, The Coventry Transport Museum
For many people, Coventry has long meant cars, concrete and a cathedral, but recently there seems to have been a concerted effort to get the city known for other reasons, and it looks as though it's paying off.
Last year the city was nominated for the Sterling Prize for architecture and this year its Transport Museum was shortlisted for the Gulbenkian Prize. The museum's latest exhibition, Cyclopedia, goes back to the city's roots - in cycling.
Coventry is well known for its motor industry, but before the age of the car it was a centre of bicycle manufacturing. From the late 1800s to the early 20th century it was home to more than 70 bike-making companies, with the last few closing in the 1950s.
Coventry is also the home of champion cyclists, who have completed some remarkable feats. All this should make the Transport Museum the perfect place for an exhibition on bicycles and cycling.
The permanent exhibition is in a long, brightly lit room on the first floor of the museum, just past the cafe. The space naturally divides into two: turn left to find out about bikes through the ages; turn right and you find exhibits on aspects of cycling from sport to fashion.
The left-hand area displays bikes of all shapes and sizes. Some are real old bone-shakers with solid tyres and no suspension to speak of; to say they look uncomfortable would be putting it mildly. At the other end of the scale are the modern, lightweight, hi-tech bikes made for speed and strength.
In between is everything and anything you can imagine. It's a shame then, that such a fantastic collection isn't displayed to its best advantage. The bikes are arranged in a random order around the edge of the room, some hung on a wire mesh against the wall, others placed just in front on racks or at floor level.
You can touch the ones you can reach, which is great, but you won't necessarily know what they are or where they fit in the scheme of bikes. Bizarrely, there are also some old ice-skates and roller-skates among the exhibits, but without explanation.
Displaying the bikes in this way would be fine if visitors were able to investigate the collection themselves, but to do so requires some kind of knowledge of bikes. There is an introductory audio-visual exhibit that gives an overview of the development of cycling and cycles, but it isn't enough to help visitors interpret the collection.
The accompanying soundtrack is very loud and rather distracting as it leaks into the rest of the gallery. Individual labels are not sufficient to help. Only a few of the bikes in the display are labelled, and sometimes these are not placed near the bike itself so that visitors have to hunt around to find them.
Consequently, there is no sense of development of the bikes in terms of history and technology, nor access to other information about the exhibits: who did they belong to, is each of these bikes significant in some way, what am I seeing here? And having proudly stated Coventry's cycling heritage at the beginning of the exhibition, the connection is not highlighted in this display.
Interspersed with the bikes is some information on how they work. This comes in the form of text panels and a series of simple interactive exhibits, which explain or demonstrate ideas such as gearing, steering and suspension.
The interactive exhibits are much more effective than the text panels, which are rather technical and have diagrams that are particularly difficult to follow. The panels are situated within the display of bikes and perhaps it would have been useful to use the bikes to illustrate the ideas.
The second area of the exhibition space, on the right-hand side as you enter, concentrates on cycling as a leisure and sporting activity, and is more successful. A section on clothing shows that early cycling kit reflected a slower, more genteel approach to the pastime than we have today - velour bloomers and stockings being à la mode for cycling in the 1860s.
However there is a huge leap from the 1890s to the present day and modern cycling kit is placed at some distance from the other mannequins. Again the information is rather weak: were velour bloomers really just fashion, or were they considered functional? And what's so great about Lycra cycling shorts?
Another theme in this area is cycling as a sport, which turns out to involve much more than famous road races such as the Tour de France.
It's here that the Coventry connection, so far underplayed, starts to come to the fore. Coventry is home to some cycling heroes, including Mike Ives who has won enough events to single-handedly keep medal makers in business. There is an audiovisual exhibit showing an interview with him talking about his achievements.
Also interviewed on this film is a woman whose identity isn't clear, talking about women cyclists in sport and leisure, one of whom, Edie Atkins, cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats in two and a half days.
These personal stories liven the exhibition, tell us something about the culture of cycling, and cement the relationship between Coventry and cycling without making it too parochial.
Cyclopedia has a wonderful collection of bikes, with so much potential and so many stories to tell. If only the interpretation would allow visitors to access the wealth of information here, this could be a really stunning display.
Although some areas of the exhibition do allow non-cyclists a glimpse into this activity, for the most part understanding the collection feels like trying to cycle up a very steep hill.
Rachel Souhami is a freelance curator and lecturer in science communication at Imperial College, London
Project data
Cost: £105,000
Funding: Designation Challenge Fund, European Regional Development Fund, British Motorcycle Charity Trust
Design and Installation: In-house
Interactives: Studio 2
For many people, Coventry has long meant cars, concrete and a cathedral, but recently there seems to have been a concerted effort to get the city known for other reasons, and it looks as though it's paying off.
Last year the city was nominated for the Sterling Prize for architecture and this year its Transport Museum was shortlisted for the Gulbenkian Prize. The museum's latest exhibition, Cyclopedia, goes back to the city's roots - in cycling.
Coventry is well known for its motor industry, but before the age of the car it was a centre of bicycle manufacturing. From the late 1800s to the early 20th century it was home to more than 70 bike-making companies, with the last few closing in the 1950s.
Coventry is also the home of champion cyclists, who have completed some remarkable feats. All this should make the Transport Museum the perfect place for an exhibition on bicycles and cycling.
The permanent exhibition is in a long, brightly lit room on the first floor of the museum, just past the cafe. The space naturally divides into two: turn left to find out about bikes through the ages; turn right and you find exhibits on aspects of cycling from sport to fashion.
The left-hand area displays bikes of all shapes and sizes. Some are real old bone-shakers with solid tyres and no suspension to speak of; to say they look uncomfortable would be putting it mildly. At the other end of the scale are the modern, lightweight, hi-tech bikes made for speed and strength.
In between is everything and anything you can imagine. It's a shame then, that such a fantastic collection isn't displayed to its best advantage. The bikes are arranged in a random order around the edge of the room, some hung on a wire mesh against the wall, others placed just in front on racks or at floor level.
You can touch the ones you can reach, which is great, but you won't necessarily know what they are or where they fit in the scheme of bikes. Bizarrely, there are also some old ice-skates and roller-skates among the exhibits, but without explanation.
Displaying the bikes in this way would be fine if visitors were able to investigate the collection themselves, but to do so requires some kind of knowledge of bikes. There is an introductory audio-visual exhibit that gives an overview of the development of cycling and cycles, but it isn't enough to help visitors interpret the collection.
The accompanying soundtrack is very loud and rather distracting as it leaks into the rest of the gallery. Individual labels are not sufficient to help. Only a few of the bikes in the display are labelled, and sometimes these are not placed near the bike itself so that visitors have to hunt around to find them.
Consequently, there is no sense of development of the bikes in terms of history and technology, nor access to other information about the exhibits: who did they belong to, is each of these bikes significant in some way, what am I seeing here? And having proudly stated Coventry's cycling heritage at the beginning of the exhibition, the connection is not highlighted in this display.
Interspersed with the bikes is some information on how they work. This comes in the form of text panels and a series of simple interactive exhibits, which explain or demonstrate ideas such as gearing, steering and suspension.
The interactive exhibits are much more effective than the text panels, which are rather technical and have diagrams that are particularly difficult to follow. The panels are situated within the display of bikes and perhaps it would have been useful to use the bikes to illustrate the ideas.
The second area of the exhibition space, on the right-hand side as you enter, concentrates on cycling as a leisure and sporting activity, and is more successful. A section on clothing shows that early cycling kit reflected a slower, more genteel approach to the pastime than we have today - velour bloomers and stockings being à la mode for cycling in the 1860s.
However there is a huge leap from the 1890s to the present day and modern cycling kit is placed at some distance from the other mannequins. Again the information is rather weak: were velour bloomers really just fashion, or were they considered functional? And what's so great about Lycra cycling shorts?
Another theme in this area is cycling as a sport, which turns out to involve much more than famous road races such as the Tour de France.
It's here that the Coventry connection, so far underplayed, starts to come to the fore. Coventry is home to some cycling heroes, including Mike Ives who has won enough events to single-handedly keep medal makers in business. There is an audiovisual exhibit showing an interview with him talking about his achievements.
Also interviewed on this film is a woman whose identity isn't clear, talking about women cyclists in sport and leisure, one of whom, Edie Atkins, cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats in two and a half days.
These personal stories liven the exhibition, tell us something about the culture of cycling, and cement the relationship between Coventry and cycling without making it too parochial.
Cyclopedia has a wonderful collection of bikes, with so much potential and so many stories to tell. If only the interpretation would allow visitors to access the wealth of information here, this could be a really stunning display.
Although some areas of the exhibition do allow non-cyclists a glimpse into this activity, for the most part understanding the collection feels like trying to cycle up a very steep hill.
Rachel Souhami is a freelance curator and lecturer in science communication at Imperial College, London
Project data
Cost: £105,000
Funding: Designation Challenge Fund, European Regional Development Fund, British Motorcycle Charity Trust
Design and Installation: In-house
Interactives: Studio 2
