A strong concept and good planning are vital to hosting a successful exhibition.
As you work to create your exhibition, it’s a good idea to start planning your final product early. You could be working towards an exhibition in your school, or in a gallery or community centre, or producing a printed report or even a website. Each Small Object Big Story project will have its own individual identity.
Planning your final product also includes working out who will view it (your audience), and what you would hope they would get out of the experience (your key messages). If you are planning an exhibition, now is the time to consider where you will hold it. Regional libraries, galleries, historical societies and other community groups may offer suitable spaces, while some schools have even established school museum spaces.
Whatever your final product, it's important to begin with a strong concept, and to seek out visually appealing objects and/or images. It should communicate interesting stories or ideas. Associated material such as photographs, diagrams, maps, personal stories, or artists’ statements can also contribute to a strong concept.
Establish project goals and theme
Use this list of questions to establishing your project goals:
- What is being researched?
- What is the purpose/desired outcome of the research?
- How much time will be allocated to the project?
- What sort of research will you undertake?
- Will the research be undertaken individually or in groups?
- What will the format of the final product be – an installation, exhibition, online exhibition, or publication?
- Will there be partners in the project? If so, how will those relationships be developed?
- Who will manage the project?
- What sort of evaluation procedures will be employed?
- How will successful completion of the project be identified?
Using your answers, you are now ready to prepare an exhibition proposal or brief. This document can be used as the basis for communicating and decision making about the exhibition, and as a basis for funding applications.
Your proposal should include a theme upon which the presentation of the objects and stories will be based. Broad themes could be change, place, influences, functions, gender, time, or socio-political or environmental issues. More specific themes could be work in the home, toys, tools, journeys, our ancestors, and where our family came from.
Tip: you might like to check out Assign Roles so that everyone has an understanding of what they’re going to be working on.
Stages of exhibition development
Once your project goals have been identified, you can create a timeline to plot the key activities associated with research, investigation and exhibition or publication of research.
A project plan will help you work through the stages of developing the exhibition. Planning an exhibition involves working backwards through the process, breaking down all the tasks that need doing, providing plenty of time for each stage, and working out who is doing what. We suggest having a quick read of the whole Small Object Big Story guide to understand the steps you'll undertake when creating your exhibition.
Tip: participants can create a digital log for their research in journal or diary format. Using collaborative document tools such as Google Drive or Trello can help this process.
