By Amy Gorton, class of 2017
When I applied to the Museology Graduate Program at the University of Washington, I knew there would be many opportunities to gain experience. After all, I was moving from Montana to Seattle, the increase in museums alone had me excited. What I couldn’t fathom, however, was how many doors the program would actually open for me. This blog highlights just one of many of those doors…
For six years, the program has partnered with local museums for direct fieldwork in exhibition design and development. For me, this is amazing, considering my dream job is to become an exhibit designer.
In the Spring, the program offers an Exhibition Seminar where students learn about the design and development process for exhibits. The course is lecture based with dabs of fun thrown in like confetti. A field trip to a design firm one week… a mount making workshop the next… We even had guest lectures from the top label writer in the country… Who is Judy Rand, Alex?
The class project for the course, however, is where the exhibit opportunity and partnerships came in. The class was divided into teams and given a parent museum and exhibit concept to design. I was assigned to Team Awesome (self-proclaimed name) with the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park – Seattle Unit. Our task was to design an exhibit connecting presidents to national parks.
Plot Twist! There was an extra level of intensity for the three teams who were assigned to Klondike. At the end of the quarter, each team pitched their exhibit design to the parent museum through a presentation with the Klondike teams competing to have their exhibit chosen for a directed fieldwork next quarter.
Through researching, my team discovered that national parks can take decades, sometimes half a century, to be established as a national park. And more often than not, they become national parks because of the passionate individuals and grass-root organizations advocating for them. So, my team came up with the exhibit concept that passionate people achieve dreams. The exhibit focuses on the power individuals have to gain the president’s attention. Our exhibit is titled A Passion for Preservation: How Dreams Become a Reality at the President’s Desk. I believe our encouraging message is what helped our team win the spring competition and secure our exhibit for the directed fieldwork course.
I’m not going to lie, the directed fieldwork class this autumn was tough. While museums usually have years to design and develop an exhibit, my team had 10 weeks to finalize our exhibit portfolio and install. This included submitting loan requests, photograph usage rights, finalizing panels and text labels, submitting print packages to vendors, purchasing exhibit materials, and deinstalling the previous exhibit in the gallery. The tight timeline was difficult, but well worth the end product of seeing our exhibit up. The exhibition will run from December 8th, 2016 – March 17th, 2017.
My favorite part of the process was how close I got with my teammates. I hardly knew the people I was assigned with, having never worked with them in class projects until last spring. The amount of time and energy needed for this exhibit, however, forced us to practically live together. My teammates are some of my favorite people in the program now and have my utmost respect.
My second favorite part would have to be a tie between two exhibit components: our Mila Mountain and President’s Desk exhibit interactive.
Our Mila Mountain was an idea I came up with after my team decided the Mila Walls in the exhibit should be assembled into an equilateral triangle to give our exhibit more wall space. Since the Mila Walls hosted content about national parks like Mount Rainier, I pitched to the team to make it into a mountain.
The team loved it and we included it in our presentation to Klondike during spring. During the fall, our optimism stayed strong with building a mountain out of chicken wire, paper maché, and paint, even when our professors and National Park Service staff at Klondike were not convinced. Today, however, our lovely Mila Mountain reigns supreme looking over our exhibit.
Our President’s Desk exhibit interactive was an idea I came up with after reading an article in AAM’s Exhibitionist magazine. Museum visitors can create their own national park and sign a bill establishing it into existence at the President’s desk.
I love the concept, interaction, and am proud of my team and the amount of work they put into refinishing an old desk into its now presidential glory.
This exhibition is simply one opportunity out of several I’ve been blessed with while attending UW. The opportunities I’ve experienced through the program have been invaluable, gaining me experience, teaching me lessons, and making me into not only the professional, but also the person, I’m going to be. A huge thank you not only goes out to Klondike and the Museology Graduate Program for having their friendship and allowing this great opportunity to come out of their partnership, but also to the previous exhibit teams who have successful installed their exhibitions paving the way
for us.
