22 November

Museum Takeover Day

The big day finally arrived - installing our exhibition!

In the lead up, the Museum organised the graphic design, printing and framing. We also retrieved objects from storage, moved plinths stands and cases and organised labels. We also made sure we had lots of blutak on hand! There was a lot of preparation to make sure that when our junior curators arrived at the Museum they could focus on setting up their exhibits. While we did not quite have everything to hand, we did have most things ready. Some groups did not have much to do, as their exhibits were set up quickly. The video game group - with seven members and one computer to load their game on to - were one group that was a little bored! Other groups had a lot to do though, and spent their time working on their exhibit and deciding where to put their pictures.

A few tips I would take away for next time:

1. Have one adult per group. We had 5 adults between 7 groups, and it was not enough to work with each group and co-ordinate media interviews.

2. We had a delay with our frames, so some groups had almost nothing to do. To combat this, we had some A4 printouts of their images so at least they could put their pictures up in the order they wanted.

3. Have a plan for interesting things for groups that don't have a lot of 'things' to put on display. With hindsight, I wish I had some marketing material or other meaningful activities planned for the groups that had put in a lot of work (such as the gaming group and the walking tour group) but did not have a lot to do to set up their exhibit. They could have decorated display boxes or helped to load the U-turn display, but I didn't have the materials available for them.

4. You cannot have too much blutak, batteries and glue on hand.

5. Make it easy. We had the space clear, and focused on having as much as possible ready so they could focus on the 'fun' part of design. This gave a great energy to the room.

6. Post-it notes are great for the junior curators to write down any notes for things that were forgotten or ideas they had in the moment. Our curators only had a little over an hour, and then we finished the installation. This helped to keep their 'stamp' on the project until the very end.

The morning passed by in a blur - it was over almost as soon as it started, and most of the exhibits were set up to a good point. We were running low on stands, but overall it worked well. It was high energy, but a lot of fun.

And of course, we all got cake at the end!

Waiting for the curators - the basics are in place so that the junior curators can focus on their install their displays.

Working hard to organise and install displays.

Imi directs where her group would like the decals installed for the Story of the Platypus exhibit.

The video-game design group testing out the levels on their game.