Exhibition design

Research And Inspiration Final Presentation.

Development Final Presentation

Final Design Presentation

My most recent project in Interior and Environmental Design was to design an exhibition based on the theme of jutopolis. As jute was a major employer of the Dundee people less than 100 years ago this project was extremely relevant to our town. Through group work researching the jute industry and similar exhibitions we found that the education of the history of jute lacks the workers point of view. And so in my group we intervened a woman who worked in the mills "Lilly Thompson". This gave us a great insight into the hardship these workers endured.

In the end we designed a sensation based exhibition which should give the spectator similar feelings to the jute workers.

As you enter the exhibition you see a wall with a quote we received from Lilly which says

"No matter where you turned, it was jute" We felt that this quote was extremely significant in the viewers understanding of how important jute was to the people of Dundee. The second thing the viewer would see are three sketchy illustrations of hands doing three signals. This is because the mill workers often had to communicate visually because of the defining noise of the machines. Then they are confronted with a wall of hanging jute that a video of Lilly using her hand signals in the mills is projected onto. Viewers are encouraged to walk through this image of Lilly as if walking through her into what was her life. There is jute all around the viewer now and thicker pieces of jute with spotlights above them entice them to pull them. They trigger a sound box which plays important quotes that Lilly had said in our interview. Towards the end of this vast area of jute it begins to become tangled and eventually spirals into a tunnel which symbolises the fall of jute. When the jute industry died out in Dundee people were left jobless. Many were uneducated and had nothing else to do in life. In this tunnel another quote is written "I am a weaver, I was a weaver". Lilly said "I am a weaver"and then quickly corrected herself " I was a weaver" this was great because it showed that those people who were in the mills still feel part of it because it was their entire life.

I feel through our design process we have successfully designed an exhibition that truly helps people understand the life of a jute worker. I would hope that the public would enjoy our exhibition and remember it for years to come, never forgetting about the hard working Jute workers.