Voyagers

“Voyagers” is a permanent audio video installation by The Light Surgeons for the National Maritime Museum’s new Sammy Ofer Wing.

The Voyagers Gallery acts as an introduction to the extraordinary depth and range of the Museum’s collections and is dominated by a 20 metre wave-like structure that stretches the full length of the room. Designed by exhibition designers Real Studio, this 3D wave is made up of 26 triangular facets and features a Puffersphere spherical projector at one end.

Using the triangular shape as a design template The Light Surgeons researched and meta tagged over 300 images and films from the Museum’s vast archives and translated them into a series of thematic visual journeys that unfold down the wave. As these designs cascade down the room, the globe projection displays thematic key words relating to each asset in the journey onto a digital navigational device inspired by the museums collection of armillary spheres.”

I love museums. However, it’s undeniable that though museums are primarily education-focused, they rarely leverage the undeniably powerful tool of “The Experience.*” It seems that most museums still ascribe to the idea that if they simply present a viewer with information they are doing an adequate job of education, much in the same way that our public education system in the U.S. relies on rote memorization to “teach” our youth in a thoroughly forgettable way. I love how this exhibit takes what could be pretty mundane content overall (I’ve been to maritime museums before. They are…not interesting) and creates a format that literally melds the information itself with the physical concept of the sea, and removes the gap between the purely mental (text, paragraphs, repetition) and emotion (the rolling of the waves, the subtle sounds of the ocean, images in a dream). Emotion is permanence.

 

*I recognize that there are many notable exceptions to this rule, especially in the realm of children’s museums, and things are definitely trending toward a more interactive experience. Bravo, museumers.

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