Research

The objective of any museum exhibition should be to tell a story. More than that, the story must present accurate historical information to ensure quality education, public and peer respect and true facts. One must take care when preparing information for an exhibit by using a wide array of sources, including primary and secondary sources, films, books etc. Find out what both sides have to say, and read as much as you can! Start here.

The first step should be the development of a curatorial essay. This will allow the team to discover historical facts, interesting sub-themes and the like, as well as develop their interest and knowledge of the subject. This blog will not describe how to write an essay. However, writing skills are essential and will become extremely useful throughout the entire process. The curatorial essay will lead to topics for the exhibit, development of common threads and of background.

Once your essay has gone through several edits and permutations(check here for tips), you can begin developing a storyline or storyboard to start turning words on paper into tangible information via panels, cases, artifacts etc. To follow...