In week 4, we went to do an activity at the Museum of Melbourne. We got an two hours to walk around the Museum of Victoria’s MELBOURNE exhibition. Here were some of the answers I jotted down:
What ARTEFACTS indicate particular notions of ‘place’?
Being an exhibition about Melbourne everything indicated a notion of a place. But if we want to get really technique a lot of them would still be a space, without personal meeting for me as opposed to a place. Things that were of significance to me and I could still identify today was the notion of Melbourne as a ‘meeting place’, Bendigo, Ballarat and “Little Lon”. It was surprising to find out the previous uses of little Lonsdale St and how it was kinda of Melbourne’s red light district.
What elements on display are distinctly MELBOURNE?
Trams, “Little Lon”, Gold rush, Luna Park, Capital Theatre box office, West Gate Bridge and Phar Lap (who had a whole section).
One of my favourite parts was the model of inside of the Capital Theatre. I love that old 50s style cinema. I’ve always ‘loved’ the idea of older films, that were seen as ‘classics’ but honestly I never really watched many until last year in our cinema class when we were learning about auteur theory. We watched a lot of Ernest Lubitsch and Blake Edwards. Currently, being the easter break I’m having a little James Stewart marathon. Anyways, cinema has way of transporting you back into another time and that theatre let us step into the past world. That’s why I loved all the models so much like the bookstore (which I wish I could have gone to) and “Little Lon”.
What have you noticed about the WAYFINDING techniques used throughout the exhibition?
Titles, signs and descriptions
Splitting different areas into dates – although it was hard to do it in a linear order, however that might not have been the intention
It is a really open circular structure so visitor can ‘flow’ through it, its not a rigid layout
Does the exhibition take care to tell ‘multiple’ stories… what are these?
They separated the aboriginal history from the white settlement – two separate parallel histories
The “Little Lons” had different perspectives, each room was dedicated to a different person
However, it was one perspective for each location or historical event, it lacked different perspectives
How does it tell the story of pre white settlement (from what perspective is it told?)
– They didn’t really go into a lot of detail, there was an indigenous exhibition on the ground floor however I still find it strange that they would not include more, the section was smaller than Phar Lap’s section
How does the Museum deal with ‘difficult’ or ‘tragic’ stories?
– They just try to tell the facts – not many embellishments
– E.g. About the spanish flu – “saddest in Melbourne’s history” – they didn’t over emphasis that much
What ‘media’ do they use to tell the stories?
Displays, viewing objects with descriptions
Soundscape with the Gold Rush carriage
Map – digital
Location recreation
Video – documentary, film
Radio
Interactive objects, activities – like playing with the Gramophone, the big dipper ride
They even have a virtual tour on the website here. It could be interesting to do something like that for our own presentation later on, certain sections have videos or extra things like the stain glass window video.