Exhibition Review: ‘Not Just Ned’

I visited this temporary exhibition at the National Museum of Australia while visiting Canberra last week and with a free afternoon to kill:

I found the choice of title a little odd: for me at least, Ned Kelly isn’t high up on the list of things that sprint to mind when I think about the Irish in Australia. Perhaps it reflects the extent to which I paid attention (or not) in high school history, but to my mind the Kelly story is primarily an Australian one; the origins of the people involved is an incidental detail. (I wondered if it was a deliberate decision to link into (and then dissociate from) the Kelly story as a marketing ‘hook’, although from what I have since heard this wasn’t the case.)

Given my current research interests, my focus in visiting the exhibition was to think about the overall atmospherics and impressions that the space created rather than to concentrate too much on specifics or details. However, I got the distinct impression that the exhibition was designed with more of a Studier* type of visitor in mind. To be fair, these visitors were not in short supply – one older couple who entered about the same time I did stopped to carefully study every label and object; I tried to keep tabs on them during my visit but by the time I was done (some 20-25 minutes later) they were barely 1/4 of the way through the exhibition. Whether they continuted at this pace throughout the visit or run out of steam will have to remain a mystery. (In general, the exhibition did seem to be attracting an older demographic, although this could be just as much due to the fact it was a weekday afternoon.)

The exhibition’s layout was broadly thematic, with themes presented in a rough chronological order: arriving, settling in, etc., culminating in a display of more recent Irish migrants and the ongoing sense of shared identity with both the old country and the new. There were also displays dedicated to the Irish contributions to different facets of Australian life, such as politics, agriculture, sport, entertainment and so on. Another strong theme, obviously, was the role of Catholicism in shaping the outlooks of Irish migrants, the perception of Irish migrants by other Australians, and attitudes to political events unfolding back in the old country. Certain chapters in Australian history with strong Irish links, such as the Kelly Gang, Burke & Wills exhibition and the Eureka Stockade, had their own dedicated mini-exhibition areas.

The exhibition was very object-rich and while some of the objects were organised to illustrate specific stories or reflect the life of a certain key personality, there was no obvious logic to the juxtaposition of other displays. I gather this was a deliberate choice, but sometimes this approach a little unnerving as I’m not sure if there is meant to be some broader message that I’m somehow failing to ‘get’.

There was a seating area roughly in the middle of the exhibtion area with four comfy swivel chairs, each with an iPad (built into a rigid frame) allowing you to select different music, audio recordings, letters home and so forth (a good use of off-the-shelf technology). Speakers embedded into the chairs worked well, providing good sound but not interfering with other seated users. I liked that the swivel chairs meant you could choose which part of the gallery you wished to overlook while you listened. One downside was that the chairs were definitely a single-user experience – fine as a solo visitor like me, but I noticed couples having to either take turns or with one person standing leaning over the chair to be in aural range of the speakers. Maybe it would have been a good idea to make one of the chairs  double-width to allow shared listening.

As I mentioned before, I was primarily looking at the exhibition from an atmospheric perspective, and the thing that struck me was how dark the space was**. The ceiling and walls of the NMA’s temporary exhibition space are painted black, enveloping the space in a sense of gloom which is only penetrated by strategically placed track lighting (in a ceiling which is probably about 4-5 metres in height).

I find such spaces inherently fatiguing and a bit claustrophobic, making it difficult for me to focus on the displays and ensuring I’m ready to call it a day after about 20-30 minutes. (Other people I’ve spoken to are less bothered by low light levels- I’d be interested to find out whether I’m in the majority or minority on this one.) On a more practical level, the fact that the graphics are lit from a single source sometimes meant that you have to be careful not to cast a shadow on the bit you’re trying to read. This was a particular problem for graphics on any horizontal or near-horizontal surface.

Also, looking from an atmospheric perspective, there was (with some exceptions) little clear visual signposting of different thematic areas which you could determine at a glance if you were looking to dip in and out of content rather than go through the exhibition systematically. In some areas it wasn’t immediately apparent where one theme stopped and another started.  I would have preferred a bit more of a content hierarchy with a few more intermediate level take-home messages, and suspect that such an approach might even have encouraged me to look closer at the objects. In other words, a bit of  a top-down approach (i.e. higher level, big-picture messages to hook you in), to balance the object-led approach which is more bottom-up.

At the end of the exhibition was a large reading area and facility for tracing your Irish roots. Plus of course the obligatory gift shop. But by this stage, having no Irish ancestry that I know of, my visit was done and I made a welcome return to the Canberra afternoon sunshine.

*Studier in the sense of the ‘Streaker, Stroller and Studier’ characterisation of different kinds of visitors.

**Someone will probably point out that the low light levels are for conservation purposes. However, I wonder how many of the objects in this particular exhibition are really so light sensitive as to warrant this approach, particularly given it is a temporary exhibition. Conservators may be horrified at the thought, but I do think it is time to revisit the evidence concerning light levels and object care, to see if we’re getting the balance right in this regard.