Through African Eyes @ the DIA

[Alison Benjamin]

Hi,

Here are some details of where the DIA is with planning for their
Through African Eyes (TAE) exhibition, based on an email Jennifer sent
me a few weeks ago. This provides some more background information on
the DIA's process for planning a temporary exhibition.

TAE Exhibition dates:  April 11- Aug 8 2010.

Some staff members of interest:

Swarupa - Education & Interpretive Specialist
Jennifer, Director of Interpretive Programs.
Nii Quarcopoome - curator
Matt Sikora - Visitor research


Swarupa and Jennifer meet twice a week with Nii and Tracee Glab, the
exhibition assistant. Nii selected the objects long ago, and proposed
the main themes of the show. Swarupa and Jennifer led Nii through a
series of discussions to identify the big idea and the visitor
outcomes for the show. (Whereas the curators are very much content
experts, and lead with the intellectual content and aesthetic
development of the show, the interpretive staff are experts in the
visitor experience, and lead the development of how the intellectual
content can be experienced through the exhibition medium.)

The Big Idea and the Visitor Outcomes became TAE's guiding principles,
and Swarupa and Jennifer have been working together with Nii to group
the objects and determine the flow of the visitor experience. Matt
Sikora, in evaluator/visitor research, has conducted interviews with a
range of possible visitors, and he's conducted a literature survey.
They've been spending a lot of time waiting to see if the object loans
are coming through

In Detroit, I attended one of the biweekly TAE planning meetings.
During this meeting, Nii, Swarupa, and Jennifer talked about object
groupings and interpretive strategies. They were using a whiteboard
(see JPG attached, taken with my webcam so all the words are
backwards..) to play with groupings of objects. There was also an
architectural drawing of the preliminary floorplan, and a document
that included objects in each grouping by theme, and descriptions of
each theme.

Right now, there's a basic floorplan, with object groupings, and a
flow of "sections" -- Stranger, Settler, etc. They're working on
determining what object juxtapositions will be, and what kinds of
interpretive devices will be developed for each area/object. They're
working on determining the purposes for each label, e.g. "the purpose
of the label for this object will be to help visitors see the the way
the imagery reflects more than one viewpoint about colonialism"; "the
purpose of this video is to show how this object was used in its
original context."

Their work is being informed by three Africans (from Ghana, Nigeria,
Ivory Coast) who live in Detroit and are functioning as our advisory
team. They are helping the DIA to understand some of the common
misconceptions people have about Africa; they are also commenting on
our exhibition organization. Since this exhibition is called "Through
African Eyes" there's the hope of including their actual words in the
show somehow. (The show will also feature video interviews that Nii
has collected while in Africa, as well as other ways to get African
voices in the show.)

Once the list of interpretives and all object placement issues
determined, they'll be shared with the exhibition designer and graphic
designer. The exhibition designer has already shown them ideas for the
case design. The graphic designer will work with us on any interactive
devices and interpretives, as well as the text presentation and
hierarchy.

Then, the writing of text will be divided up, and the process of
writing interpretive texts and designing interactives will begin.

Some of the interpretives will go through formative evaluation, led by
Matt Sikora.

Nii is also working on entries for the exhibition catalog at this time.

They're beginning to think of how we'll address this material with
school groups. Jennifer expects they're looking at a web component for
pre- and post-visit use by middle and high school groups. Ideally,
they'd like to make connections between the exhibition and the
permanent collection. (There are several objects in the show that are
in the DIA's permanent collection.) --- so that the exhibition remains
relevant and useful after this temporary exhibition goes away.

And there will also be training of volunteers who will give tours of
the show to pre-scheduled groups (adults and kids).

The DIA is planning to develop a cell phone tour for this show.
They're experimenting with their first cell phone tour this fall, with
an exhibition of photos by Richard Avedon (Mid October 2009 through
January 17 2010).
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