The Joyous Challenge of Curating Displays

Hi everyone,

We're messing with your heads a little bit today because we've changed groups. But don't worry, this was only for today! Our heritage challenge today was to curate a display cabinet at the Yorkshire Museum - so much fun! We, Katrina and Astrid, were given artefacts from the Neolithic... exciting and scary! It was amazing to be able to handle such incredibly old objects, especially when you hear the stories behind them. We had the chance to work with objects from the York Hoard, found near the railway station, which for a long time was considered to be the oldest evidence of human occupation in York. Another artefact we got to handle was a Langdale Axe from Cumbria (Katrina's a little bit obsessed!); it was amazing to see how well made it was and see where the handle would have been attached. We chose these as some of the centrepieces for our display.

Hard at work

An example of our wonderful illustrations.

With the help of the museum's curator, Natalie McCaul, we set about trying to arrange our artefacts in a way which would engage the viewer and tell a story. We decided upon a theme that would have linked the artefacts together in the Neolithic, which also related to the developments in farming and domestic life. This theme was cooking (everybody loves food!). We wanted to appeal to all age ranges, so we decided to do illustrations along with the textual information. We had one introduction label which introduced the Neolithic and our theme, and then tried to reduce the amount of text on the other labels. More than forty words were not allowed on each label, therefore  it was a challenge to be concise and creative at the same time. However, we think we managed to work around this, as the illustrations demonstrated the use of the objects.

For our labels, we decided it would be effective to use 'quotes' from a Neolithic man to explain what the objects would have been used for in the cooking process. We thought this would be a more interesting way of putting across facts which were more conversational and relatable for the viewers. Take a look at our photos and let us know what you think...

Our finished result!

We learned a lot about how to make an exhibit visually interesting whilst trying to put across all the factual information required. It was definitely a challenge and we'll never take museum labels for granted ever again!

Cross posted from Moving Forward into the Past