Fitzwilliam Museum
Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance
2023
‘A watershed show’ for the Museum.
This was an important show for the Museum, and one unusually taking place in the Founder’s Galleries.
My task was, within a ten-day allocation, to help the Museum find a gallery usage plan and preliminary content allocation that bridged all the concerns between the Operation team, the Conservation team and the Content team. Ticketing locations, visitor flow, light levels and content weighting and location all had to be balanced.
Overview of the Miro board workings
Sight lines and circulation for the preferred option
Plotting content, in principle
I set up a Miro board so the teams could keep sight of how I was developing their material in tandem. The bulk of the development was with the Content team: mapping content to see, at a glance, where the bulk of objects landed and where the majority of light sensitive objects lay; exploring locations for displays in relation to circulation, sight lines and group gathering points; and looking at display opportunities outside the gallery spaces.
The work was taken to a point where it could be further developed and refined by the three in-house teams, and subsequently briefed to an exhibition design agency to develop and implement (West Port Architects).
Image credit: Fitzwilliam Museum
Image credit: David Valinsky Photography
Image credit: Fitzwilliam Museum
Black Atlantic was the first in a series of temporary exhibitions exploring Cambridge’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. I have subsequently concluded a quicker but similar exercise with the Content team for the ‘Part 2’ exhibition.