The Exhibition

Follow Team Opal as we design and build our own exhibition for Museum Studies Leicester.

Team Opal are proud to present our exhibition, ‘A Taste of Home’. Our display is one of 8 celebrating the theme of Migration, Home and Belonging at the school of Museum Studies Leicester. We decided to focus on the importance of food reminding you of home.

We transformed our standard black exhibition case into a kitchen cabinet. We filled it with food that reminded us of home as well as our object, the botija (see research tab for more info).

Next to the case we tried to create the aura of a kitchen. We used gingham to create the illusion of a table and hung utensils from the wall. We also incorporated a suitcase, a connotation for the use of our object, the botija. We used this as an interactive where people could draw or right what food reminds them of home. 

We also used an Ipad, which we placed in a picture frame to look homely. This was another interactive where people could click on a map and hear our stories about food.

We are extremely proud of what we have created and hope that other people will enjoy the messages of food and home. A big thank you to our digital helpers Maria Wilhelmy and George Erfesoglou, you enabled us to add an extra layer of detail to our work. 

Opal and Out.

Installation

Follow Team Opal as we design and build our own exhibition for Museum Studies Leicester.

For the past two days we have been busy installing and organising our exhibition. Yesterday we concentrated mainly on preparing the items we were using to dress our case and also printing handouts and interactives.

We decided to physically stamp the back of our ‘passport’ handouts to give the impression of having travelled to our exhibition.

We also started to transform our case with the use of wood-effect vinyl. This was an activity that took a lot of patients but we think it looks very effective.

Today was the big day for installing. We had a number of things that we needed drilling into the wall so we thought this would be a good place to start. Alan helped us to install the shelf and our hook, and things started to come together from there.

We then dressed our case and installed our Botija (for more info see the Research tab above).

We also decorated the interactive area and secured our text panels onto the wall.

Now we are all set for the opening on Friday the 10^th of February. If you cannot come along keep your eyes peeled on this blog as we will be posting photos of the finished display after the opening. For now enjoy this photo of us eating celebratory ice-cream instead.

Opal and Out.

Weekly Round Up 3

Follow Team Opal as we design and build our own exhibition for Museum Studies Leicester.

This week we have tried to tie everything together ready for our exhibition opening on Friday the 10^th of February. We focused mainly on practical elements such as ordering and buying things in order to dress the case. On Tuesday we also sent our final designs of the text off to be printed – how exciting!

We also finished designing our hand-outs and posters, both of which come equipped with QR codes that take the viewer directly to our blog for more information. A passport design was used so that people can ‘travel’ to our blog. We felt that this was a clever way of incorporating the exhibition theme into our marketing. Our digital manager has also been working on our exhibition interactive, where people can listen to our stories about what food reminds us of home.

Overall, it has been another busy week but we cannot wait to see it all come together throughout the installation and finally the opening.

Opal and Out.

Weekly Round Up 2

Follow Team Opal as we design and build our own exhibition for Museum Studies Leicester.

This week we had a change of plan in terms of our exhibition design. On Tuesday, following a meeting with one of our supervisors, we decide to totally redesign our case. Through our discussion we had found that the case was beginning to lose its message as we had so many ideas we wanted to convey. We decided to narrow our focus and begin designing again with the sole idea of ‘Food is a representation of home’ in mind.

Over night we each drew up our designs and compared on Wednesday morning. We found that we had a consensus for making our case into a form of food cupboard. As a group we also decided that the olive jar should not be the centre of our exhibition, instead the theme of food and home would be. Whilst the pot would still have a place in the case so too would other food that we view as important in representing our homes.

We also liked the idea of incorporating a suitcase into the exhibit as the connotations of the olive pot are similar, something you travel with and transport goods in. We felt that we could create an interactive around a suitcase where people could place pieces of card inside it with their answer to the question ‘What food reminds you of home?'. We came up with the idea of these cards being in the shape of either a suitcase or the olive jar. 

In addition, the group also felt that this redesign would fit well with our previous idea of a running audio on the Ipad where we describe foods that remind us of home. Within this new idea, the food items that we talk about could be seen within the case, tying the two together.

Some members of the group then mocked these ideas up into a digital form and we then presented them to our supervisors for a design critique. The idea was very well received and helpful advice was given into how we could extend and develop the idea.

As a group we have learnt a lot this week and cannot wait to make this idea a reality in the next few weeks.

Opal and out (mic drop).

Sharing Food and Home

Follow Team Opal as we design and build our own exhibition for Museum Studies Leicester.

Today we brought in food that we felt represented home. Our group represents 8 different nationalities so we had a huge variety of different food cultures to draw upon. 

This is the selection of food that we shared together today:

Llapingachos - Ecuadorian potato pancakes

Spanakopita- spinach and feta cheese pastry puff

Fairy cakes with chocolate buttercream

Tarte Tatin - apple turnover

Chocolate and marshmallow muffins

Siu Mai – Cantonese morning tea dishes with pork and wheat flour.

Caprese Salad - tomato & mozzarella cheese

Custard bun- Cantonese staple food made of flour, milk, cream and egg

KimBab - The combination of rice, bacon, tuna, and Kimchi (Korean traditional food).

We took photos of us sharing the food, which we may incorporate into our exhibition. We also intend to put our recipes together and enable online access to these. This would allow us to show the importance of food, home and migration today.

 

We are now feeling very full and ready for another exciting week.

Opal and Out.