As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my sister and I saw Harry Potter the Exhibition at the Boston Museum of Science earlier this week. I am going to start this review with my overall impressions which will be spoiler free. After that, I’ll go into more detail about some aspects of the exhibit which you may prefer to be surprised by if you plan to see it. To my mind, it would not be a problem to know what’s coming from my descriptions, but you may feel differently so I will give you a warning before beginning that part.

Overall, I loved this experience. We had what I would consider an optimal viewing experience since the museum was almost deserted during our weekday visit, I can imagine that during busy times, such as school vacation weeks, it could be much more difficult to see everything. It is important going into this exhibit to understand what it is: it’s an exhibit of many costumes and some props used in making the films, they are displayed in small stage sets which do a great job of giving them context and creating an environment. It’s important to understand though, this exhibit is not about the making of the films. There is no look behind the scenes or education about the filmmaking process. The optional audio guide is primarily the voices of the artists who created the various costumes and props telling stories and talking about aspects of the process, while these clips were mostly very interesting, they were too short for my taste, I wanted more.

The creators of the exhibit done a terrific job of creating environments for the objects to live in that help you to feel the context, and I found this extremely effective. The objects and costumes themselves ranged from interesting to magnificent and extraordinary. We spent close to an hour and a half touring the exhibit at a very leisurely pace, looking at objects in detail and listening to each audio guide recording. Both of us enjoyed the experience very much. My basic recommendation is, if you have a chance to see this exhibit and it’s appealing to you, do it.

Spoilers begin here

in my post yesterday I talked about how important I think the opening of an exhibit is, at least to me. The opening of this Harry Potter exhibit was terrific. After our tickets were taken and we got our audio guides, we were instructed to wait in a queue line. (We were the only ones in the line.) Shortly, a British sounding gentleman in costume led us into a sort of courtyard area. At the front of it was a small stage, on the stage was a stool, and on the stool was an object which could only be the sorting hat. We were each called up to sit on the stool, the sorting hat was placed on our heads, and we were each sorted (both Gryffindors.)

Then the doors were opened to a building façade, and we were led into a dark room with about eight beautifully backlit posters for the films. We quickly discovered that these were not really posters, but rather large high-definition video screens mounted sideways. Shown on the screens is an excellent montage of moments from the films, clips interplay between screens driven by sound effects and the familiar and powerful musical score. I really enjoyed it. As the montage built to its climax, the whole right wall of the space rolled up like a giant window shade leaving us looking into a bright light, as were called forward into this newly revealed space we discovered that the bright light is the headlight of the Hogwarts Express locomotive. Another British gentleman quickly ushered us through that space and into the exhibit itself. Quite an opening.

The next thing we saw was a short hallway filled with portraits some of which were video screens containing animated ghosts — I thought that this was mildly interesting but because the video screens looked so different from the stationary portraits I did not experience any suspension of disbelief, or sensation that I was looking at anything other than a video screen.

From the air began the incredible array of tableaux of costumes and props in appropriate settings which I described above. About two thirds of the way through was a full size, walk-through set of Hagrid’s cottage. This served as a transition into the darker characters and the Forbidden Forest. Here in addition to costumes were full-size models of some of the creatures which were created primarily in computer graphics. All very cool.

Then we came around a corner into a small sort of anti-room with walls covered in notices in individual frames just like in the film, this was the entrance to the Great Hall. The Great Paul was not a full set, but rather a set of tableaux arranged to suggest the space (of course creating a full great Hall would’ve required more space than the entire exhibition probably used.) In this space were displayed the most lavish costumes, primarily from the Yule Ball scene.

At the exit of the Great Hall was another short hallway of the portraits some of which were video screens, the ghosts in the video screens were all applauding. I was somewhat disappointed to discover that this was the end of the exhibit. After the incredible themed opening experiences, I was expecting some sort of grand finale which never came. I’m sure the intention was that the Great Hall would fill that purpose, but it just didn’t work for me. I had actually been wondering in the back of my mind as I walked through the exhibit what the finale would be. I thought I had figured it out, nowhere in the exhibit was there a reference to Dumbledore’s office, and I thought that somehow we would find ourselves they are with something cool happening as a finale. Instead we got a gift shop. Now don’t get me wrong, it was a very nice gift shop, with lots of cool things, but it wasn’t the finale I was looking for.

Overall I would still give the exhibit a rating of eight on a scale of 1 to 10, which from someone who is as picky as I am is actually quite a complement, and better than I expected it to be.

Have you seen the exhibit? Would you like to? I’d love to hear it in the comments.

I love museums. In fact, going to museums is one of my favorite things to do. I have to say though, I’m rather picky about exhibits. Very rarely do I find it interesting to look at objects out of context. I want to see a series of objects, descriptions and media that tell a story. I want to be led on a journey to a place, or a time, where I’ve never been and possibly could never go. Of course, considering the title of this blog, I imagine that this doesn’t come as a big surprise. It’s amazing how effectively an exhibit can tell a story.

(photo by duluoz cats)

Archaeology as theater

One of the most effective and enjoyable examples of museum exhibition as storytelling that I have ever experienced is the main exhibit at POINTE-À-CALLIÈRE  the Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History. The museum is built on the site, the actual spot, where the city of Montréal was founded. An amazing archaeological excavation revealed generations of construction and life in the city as physical layers of foundations and artifacts. The museum was built over the top of this excavation.

You enter the very modern museum building, and after purchasing your tickets enter a theater. As the multimedia presentation begins, you discover that you’re looking down into the excavation. The show is projected onto screens above the excavation, and on the rock surfaces and foundations themselves. It is an extremely effective orientation to the history of Montréal and brings you back to the founding of the city. When you leave the theater, you go down into the excavation itself, and the rest of the exhibition consists of winding your way through the physical foundations of the city of Montréal. As you take this journey, lighting and projections are used very effectively to bring to life what was happening in the various locations you see. It really is an amazing journey.

Storytelling in a tomb

In my mind, one of the most important aspects of that experience is that the story is laid out by a clear opening which draws you in, and also provides the background context you need to understand what you’re seeing. I think that all of my favorite museum exhibits do this. About a month ago I went with friends to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and we saw the special exhibit The Secrets Of Tomb 10A. This is an exhibit drawn from the museum’s immense collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, but this exhibit is special because all of the objects came from one place — the Tomb 10 A. of the title. Here, the storytelling was a little bit more subtle, but very present and very effective.

When you enter the exhibit, you come into an opening gallery where objects, maps and descriptive text along with a projected montage of photographs set the scene of where in Egypt these objects were discovered and begin to tell the story of the excavation. Each succeeding gallery continues the story, weaving together the ancient Egyptian religious and funerary practices, and what we can learn about that particular people for whom this tomb was built as well as the story of the excavation and in some cases the conservation of the objects. It is a wonderful journey, the context provided by the way the objects are organized and displayed makes it incredibly powerful. While I have toured the Museum’s permanent ancient Egyptian exhibits many times, and enjoy them, they lack the flow and context of The Secrets of Tomb 10A. That’s something that I really miss when I visit them.

By the way, The Secrets of Tomb 10A will be open through May 10, 2010 at the MFA. If you have any interest in ancient Egypt and anyway of getting to Boston, this exhibit is not to be missed. I love ancient Egypt, and have seen many exhibits on it — this is one of the very best.

As I think about exhibits that I’ve enjoyed, I keep coming back to how they open, your first experiences you visit. I think this is so critical to setting the context for what you’re about to see, and I think it’s something that’s often minimized or left out altogether. I’ll leave you with one of the most indelible examples of a wonderful opening in my mind.

The grand vista of space

Many years ago (it must be close to 20) the Boston Museum of Science had a special exhibit called Soviet Space, an amazing array of spacecraft and satellites built in the Soviet Union, and I believe exhibited in the US for the first time. I still remember the opening of this exhibit. You waited in a small foyer after your ticket had been taken, and at the appointed time a curtain was pulled aside and you entered a small theater. There was a panoramic screen at the front of the theater up fairly high, and on that screen a multi-image slideshow (the state-of-the-art technology at the time) introduced the story, and at the climax of the presentation, the front wall of the theater opened (much to my surprise,) revealing a giant fiber-optic star field with a sputnik spacecraft floating in front of it. That moment was pure magic for me. I still remember it so clearly all these years later.

Off to Hogwarts

There’s a reason I’m talking about this today, yesterday my sister and I visited the Harry Potter exhibition at the Boston Museum of Science. This post is really a preamble to my response to visiting that exhibit which I will post tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear how important, or not, these aspects of exhibits are to you when you visit. I look forward to your comments!