 Blockbuster exhibition, backbreaking label placement. Kinky design staff?
Although the space for this otherwise stellar exhibition was an amusing sea of bums whenever you looked up, it felt as though the standard label height caused two issues. Firstly, almost all visitors felt it necessary to bow, crouch, or somehow adjust their posture to read the labels, which over any length of time causes aches and pains (visible through a lot of people bracing, stretching out, etc). Secondly, the label height didn't easily allow for visitors to peer over/between the shoulders of anyone in front without looming or bending over them. The general public, naturally, don't think "I'll wait a mo" so it made for a very, close, experience, of unwanted contact, apology, near headbutts and oblivious unpleasant spatial intrusion. I can see the logic, I can understand searching for a medium ground for accessibility, also perhaps the desire to give the objects more space, I just wish it had gone though some more testing prior to use.
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 It was very much taken, and appreciated, as the joke it was intended to be.
 That awkward moment when one of the tour group might know more about the subject than the tour guide.
 I'm fairly sure that people who made metal holders to burn ritual incense had fire...
I know that the past is a foreign place and that not everyone has had the privilege of being educated in how things were. This lass though was a gift through the exhibition, as in seconds she could veer from intelligent and excited interest, to questing thought, to a question that left you doing a double take in case she was winding her mates up. One of her mates pointed out that if Egyptians burnt things, they must have had fire, and conversation regarding "rubbing things together" followed. Some of you reading this perhaps have the kind of role and mindset which mean that you spend as much time photographing the labels and interpretive boards at visitor attractions, as you do photographing the attraction. Be it great ideas to steal, or the failed ideas you want to punish your graphic design friends with (I'm looking at you museum at the Globe Theater...) some signs just need a wider audience to appreciate them. Here's a gem from The Rock of Gibraltar. On a recent holiday I was left pondering - Did they plan to remove the older sign? Did they originally plan to locate the new sign in a different location? Did different people not communicate clearly about the sign's contents and/or location? Did they think the extra few mm in size would help people read the text on the copy of the sign shown on the sign, as opposed to the original sign?  As an aside go and explore the Great Siege Tunnels if ever at the rock, as you don't have flipping Barbary macaques trying to nick things off you, they're cool, they contain far fewer tourists, and they are a very genuinely interesting bit of history.
"Let me get this right. Our ancient ancestors created vast and cunning wood and stone edifices to enable them to plot astronomical and seasonal events with great accuracy, yet with all the benefits of modern technology, you mistakenly celebrated the winter solstice a day early?" At least they owned up to their mistake! Some of us really would have been put to wool gathering had we been alive in an earlier time...  |
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February 2023
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