Kathleen McLean, the consulting Creative Director on the Oakland Museum of California History Gallery, is a guest blogger for HPP for this week and last. She can be reached at www.ind-x.org.
Throughout the process of planning, designing, and installing Coming to California, the new Gallery of California History at the Oakland Museum of California, the museum has been committed to testing and prototyping as many exhibit elements as possible, from individual labels and images, to whole sections of the gallery. Cardboard has become one of our major design tools (see photos below), as we erect walls and rooms full-scale in the space, and test exhibit concepts with visitors.
This practice of prototyping, combined with the tight deadline and budget, and a commitment to community co-design, required us to think very differently about the overall exhibition development process. I knew that the typical linear process, which is based on an architecture/engineering model—first conceptual design, then final design, then construction documents, then fabrication and installation—would not work for this project for a number of reasons.
First of all, we didn't really have the budget for it. (What was originally perceived as a serious constraint—not enough money to do a high-quality job—became a creative challenge and liberating factor for the project.) Instead of using external design and fabrication firms, we are using that money to hire local artisans, designers, and fabricators. By bringing the work in-house, we have created a design/build situation, where the people designing the exhibits and the people making the exhibits are, if not the same people, then at least in constant communication, lessening the need for expensive and detailed construction documents. We made a commitment to hire locally, which, besides making communications easier, also reduces our carbon footprint. And, serendipitously, we now are a team of Californians creating a gallery about California.
Also because of budget constraints, we decided to reuse furniture and display elements from the old gallery. Not only is this a great example of sustainable reuse, it also provides a continuity of character and some lingering personality from the previous environment (something sorely missing these days as old exhibitions are swept out the back door like debris, while new exhibitions made of all new resources drop in from who knows where.)
While some museums employ the approach of remedial summative evaluation—testing an exhibition with visitors after opening, and "fixing" the exhibition as a result of visitor research—this project takes the practice a step further. Rather than "finishing" everything before opening, and then improving or replacing elements that are not working (either conceptually or physically), we plan to leave some key elements in prototype form for the opening, with a message to visitors describing how they can help us complete the installation.
The details of this notion of a prototype history gallery are still in flux, as we try to determine which elements need to be more robust and complete upon opening, and which can remain more flexible, like labels made of paper, or easily changeable section titles projected onto exhibit walls. While we are still trying to figure out how much of the exhibitry is flexible and changeable, once the new gallery opens in 2010, it will not be considered "completed" or "permanent." Rather, it will be a full-scale 30,000 square foot prototype public space, awaiting the imprints and changes that visitors bring with them over time.
I would like to thank Oakland Museum of California Executive Director Lori Fogarty, and Chief Curator of History Louise Pubols for their assistance in writing this article.
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