Planning Interpretive Exhibits
AAD 410/510, 2 credits, Pass/Fail
October 2 and October 16, 2004 (Saturdays), 9:00 a.m.–4:50 p.m., 249 Lawrence Hall
Attendance at these two sessions is required for a Pass grade.
Instructor: Alice Parman, Ph.D., Museum Consultant • Organizational Coach
(541) 342-3464 aparman@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Course Description
Interpretive exhibits bring objects, images, and ideas to life for visitors through storytelling, diverse presentation media, and learning opportunities that engage multiple intelligences. In this workshop you’ll learn the basics of exhibit planning, organization, and text writing. Using examples from actual exhibit projects and working with real images and objects, you’ll experiment with ways to make exhibit content meaningful and memorablefor visitors. The instructor will share a proven approach to exhibit planning. Discussion,group work, and individual writing projects, with on-the-spot feedback, will give you a taste of the specialized, but growing field of interpretive exhibit design.

Objectives:
• learn how to go about developing an exhibit concept
• understand a proven approach to organizing and managing the exhibit design process
• learn how to apply your research skills in the exhibit design arena
• increase your ability to critique exhibit concepts and labels
• gain experience with writing text for exhibits

Topics covered:
• Introduction to exhibit planning
• The narrative walkthrough
• A vocabulary of exhibit design
• Researching and writing the exhibit outline
• Working with exhibit drawings
• Researching and selecting images
• Selecting objects
• Writing exhibit labels

Materials
• Required text: Kathleen McLean, Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions. ASTC, 1993, $35. Available at UO Bookstore.
Handouts and a bibliography for further reading will be distributed in class.

Logistics
We’ll break for lunch on our own from 12 to 1 p.m. on each Saturday. Since we’ll be going on foot to a campus museum, please bring raingear as needed. There will be one assignment to be completed between the first and second class meetings.
Assignment (due October 16—no exceptions)
• Read as much as possible of McLean’s book––at a minimum, chapters 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, and

Appendix A.
• Visit a museum (other than the UO Museum of Art and UO Museum of Natural History, which we will visit during the class). Nearby options include the Springfield Museum; Lane County Historical Museum, Oregon Air and Space Museum, and The Science Factory in Eugene; Gilbert House Children’s Museum, Hallie Ford Art Museum, and Mission Mill Museum in Salem; Portland Art Museum, Oregon Historical Society, OMSI, and the Oregon Zoo in Portland; Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria; The Museum at Warm Springs, Warm Springs; The High Desert Museum, Bend; Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Oregon Coast History Center, Newport.

• Write a five-page paper. In two pages, develop a critique of an exhibit at the museum you visited. Discuss strengths of the exhibit as well as aspects that need improvement. In the remaining three pages, describe your suggested exhibit approach to the same (or similar) content. Your prospectus should include main message(s) and key themes; brief descriptions of the proposed exhibit and the visitor experience. Show how you would use objects, graphics, audiovisual elements, and interactives.

Discussion guidelines
Material presented in this course may at times be controversial. Varied opinions and ideas are encouraged and appreciated. Participation in this class assumes that the dignity and essential worth of all participants is respected; privacy, property, and freedom of participants will be respected; bigotry, discrimination, violence, or intimidation will not be tolerated; and personal and academic integrity is expected.

Accommodations
If you have a documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please phone or e mail me before the first class. Please request that the Counselor for Students with Disabilities send a letter verifying your disability. The current counselor is Steve Pickett.
Disabilities may include (but are not limited to) neurological impairment; orthopedic impairment; traumatic brain injury; visual impairment; chronic medical conditions; emotional/psychological disabilities; hearing impairment; and learning disabilities.

AGENDA
AAD 410/510, Planning Interpretive ExhibitsOctober 2, 2004
9:00 a.m. Introductions, review agenda
9:30 Overview of exhibit development
10:15–10:30 Break
10:30 Introduction to interpretive exhibit planning
11:00 Exhibit planning exercise: Andas and Parmanns
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 Meet in lobby of UO Museum of Art for experiential exercise.
(Please be prompt.)
2:00 Return to 249 Lawrence; break
2:30 Exhibit planning exercise: natural history of Oregon
3:00 A vocabulary for exhibit design
3:15 Exhibit planning exercise cont.
4:15 Review bibliography and assignment
4:30 Questions and feedback to instructor October 16, 2004
9:00 a.m. Discuss assignment
9:30 Overview of the exhibit design process
(Break 10:15–10:30)
11:00 Writing interpretive text
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 Meet in lobby of UO Museum of Natural History, 1680 E. 15th (please be prompt)
Interpretive text: observation and analysis
2:00 Return to 249 Lawrence
Break
2:30 Text editing and rewriting exercise: Museum of Natural History
3:15 Text writing exercise: Andas and Parmanns
4:15 Introduction to exhibit evaluation
4:40 Questions and feedback to instructor