Curating an Exhibition

Topic:

I love going to the museum and looking at new exhibitions. How can I share my love for the arts and showcase my skills I gathered from my time at Saint Joseph’s University? The best way to share my love for art and my topic is by curating an exhibition. The topic of the exhibition would be women through the years. This subject can get very complex, when taking into account women’s roles and depiction of beauty. As time passes, standards, roles, and the norm changes. It’s almost different every decade. This project not only showcases my abilities, but also an important subject to myself. I am not sure what I want to do in the future, so I can’t say if it connects. However, it is a personal interest. There is a demand for museum workers, though not high.

Form:

The Exhibition would be displayed in a 3D space as a VR experience. I couldn’t find a professional, however DIPO ART EXHIBITION is a great example. It has a good layout, a good amount of works, and a good text layout. The title and artist are in the titles. I would include dates, and locations with my objects. This example also includes music, which I may use in a different way such as an audio tour, but I am unsure of how that function works.

The information about the exhibition would be on a trifold pamphlet. I plan for the advertisement to come in different forms. As of right now, I plan to have the public domain artworks within Artstep with their tombstone labels, maybe some advertisements made using Figma, and an exhibition pamphlet. The idea is for the viewer to imagine they are walking through the exhibition. Based on the amount of information and time, I was thinking of maybe creating an audio tour, however I am unsure if that is too much. There is also an option to add sound, however that may pose a problem for people that want to go through at their own pace.

An example of a museum information pamphlet would be from mycreativeshop. I like the hierarchy of scale with the words, the imaging, and the spacing. I am still unsure of what I would put in it, but I like how it’s not overwhelming. I couldn’t find a professional example of a museum pamphlet however, I can send a photo of the Maguire’s one.

Technology and Materials:

The required tech/materials needed are:

    • Art Step (3D Room/website)
    • Computer (both laptop and desktop)
    • Books (for research/can get from the library)
    • Library database (Research)
    • Canva(advertisement)
    • Adobe Indesign (Buy/advertisement)
    • Adobe Illustrator (Buy/advertisement)
      • Both Indesign and Illustrator will be $50 together through the Cloud
    • Figma (for UX design/ online advertisement)

Audience and Impact:

The primary audience for this project are people interested in art, interested in the history of women, and visitors of museums. They would learn about art pieces they probably knew nothing about and experience different cultures’ views. The purpose of this exhibition is to not only showcase my skills but to create an understanding, a new context, and learn. The exhibition would include different cultures and times. I believe it is important to see and understand women and how people viewed them comparing then to now.

Prior Experience:

I have little experience with curating an exhibition, but not much. For my East Asian Art and Architecture class, our final was to pick a subject and “create an exhibition”. I chose to do Hayao Miyazaki & Traditional Japan. While completing this project, I learned and played with ArtStep. There was a point I was going to use ArtStep, however time did not permit. I have experience of doing research on objects. My secondary major is Art History thus and for every one of my classes we had to do a research paper on an object. The best research paper I have completed about art is focused on Ai Wei Wei and his six plates. I have experience in learning about both women and different cultures. I have taken “Women, Gender and Art” and classes that focus on diversity such as but not limited to: African, East Asian, Greek, Roman, French, Dutch, Egyptian, etc. For the advertisement side of things, I have used Figma, canva, Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Indesign.

Educational Experience:

This project would reflect my abilities I learned at SJU in my Art History classes and my Communication classes (COM). It includes my skills that I learned in design and my writing skill I learned within all my classes, especially my art history classes. The COM skills would be on display in the advertisement, pamphlet display, and UX-Design (if I chose to pursue). I have used canva and Illustrator to create graphics, posters, and flyers for the Day of Dialogue. I learned to layer, create my own graphics out of line and curve them. Furthermore, I learned color theory and about what draws a person into wanting to go. I would like to expand on my COM skills and learn to use tools and settings to their full potential. In the subject matter and writing, I have taken classes about gender and diverse cultures. I would take what I learned in class about the pieces and their context and share the knowledge. My Art Historian skills would be on display with the writing, language, and research. I have written many papers before and I would like to expand on my vocabulary within this project.

Research:

I would have to research different art works that go with the topic that’s within the public domain. Furthermore, I would have to decide which method of pamphlet works best as well as the advertisement. This is important because without it, who would know to come. I would run test runs of ArtStep program to see if it is user friendly. In addition, there would be historical research to help give context to the pieces. I would have to research all that is necessary for this project and curating and exhibition. Researching the best method of pamphlets, creating mockups, and how I would want to advertise, is also important.

Obstacles and Resources:

An obstacle I foresee is getting overwhelmed. Even if I know I have a schedule to follow, I would still struggle to follow it. I also see myself struggling to find information about some pieces. I am still unsure on the amount of objects I would want to use. I would have to refamiliarize myself with the programs, but that should be a simple fix.

Timeline:

Week 3: Start my research, narrow down my topic

Week 4:  Continue research, pick my pieces, Background research Assessment due, Sketch out ideas for ads and layout of the gallery

Week 5: Finish up my research, start layout and finalize it about 50%: pick fonts and color schemes on my ads. start on an object, and edit at least 50%.

Week 6: Do another object, finish layout. finish editing first object.

Week 7: Finish editing second object and add into which ever layout I picked and test it. Look at feedback and improve from there

Week 8: Do my next object maybe knock out two if possible, create the pamphlet of at least start 25%

Week 9: Another object information, create the ads for a screen, 75% of the pamphlet complete (would just have to edit)

Week 10: Start to make sure everything looks well, test it again, and fix based on feed back, 100% done the pamphlet

Week 11: Do an overview and make sure everything looks good.

Week 12: fix anything that needs fixing