Katia Johansen
Royal Danish Collections

 

Checklist for planning: Define the exhibition

Begin by defining the exhibition’s type, content, duration, budget, financing, who is in charge, the exhibition’s goals and purpose. Exhibitions should always be concluded with an evaluation meeting, and the comments and results added to the institution’s White Book for planning. If you don’t already have a ‘White Book’ for planning an exhibition, start one now. It will include your institution’s cumulative experience in describing and planning the exhibition’s type, content, duration, budget, financing, goals and purpose, and who is in charge of what.

 

• Prepare yourself and your staff
• Prepare the costume
• Prepare the exhibition space
• Prepare the museum
• Prepare the public
• Links to further information

 

 

 

Preparing yourself and your staff

 

• ensure adequate training and practice
• ensure adequate time and space to work
• have the necessary materials, equipment, consultants, technical staff
• ensure access to reference material
• prepare a thorough description of tasks, when they are due, and who is responsible
• have regular, increasingly frequent meetings with everyone involved

 

 

Preparing costume for exhibition

 

• prepare a timeline/work schedule
• objects should be identified well in advance by curator and conservators together
• choose suitable objects
• choose mounting methods
• assess garments’ condition and write condition reports
• photography for catalog, documentation and PR
• conservation
• choose and find suitable accessories
• use proper replica undergarments for shaping and for protecting the museum objects
• make/buy/borrow/adapt mannequins

 

 

Preparing the space for exhibition 

 

• build or adapt glass cases
• design a suitable traffic plan
• choose lighting
• ensure climate
• write labels and choose how to mount them
• decide how to present information in more than one language if required
• transportation between storage, workshop and exhibition space 
• plan already beforehand how and when to dismantle

 

 

Preparing the museum

 

• security
• PR - who writes press releases and handles the press; advertising
• disaster planning
• storage
• what precedes and follows this exhibition
• approved procedure for loans, couriers, insurance
• staff health and safety
• merchandise, posters, cards
• catalog printing
• cleaning and upkeep of exhibition

 

                

 

Preparing the public

 

• decide who writes and approves PR material
• write introduction, explanations, welcome texts for exhibition
• plan extra activities, guided tours, train guides
• consider activities for children and groups
• choose advertising strategy and budget

 

 

Links to further information

 

Caring for Clothing and Textiles, Tepapa Museum, New Zealand, 2009