In the main gallery, things are arranged broadly according to a timeline - plenty of material on WW1 - but there are also little pods on different subjects, where material from different wars is brought together. Check out the one on Empire and war! We should also look at how audio and video material is used; I noticed that most of it is not on headphones, and I thought it worked quite well - what do you think? Is that something we could do, if some of our material is woven into the main "Trent To Trenches" exhibition? Also worth thinking about how it's structured overall - does it makes us feel that there are lots of different narratives and voices, or do we come away with one overarching message, and a sense that there is only one "story" being told?
For us, I think the temporary exhibition, "Catalyst" (about contemporary art and war) is perhaps even more relevant. Look out particularly for two video pieces in the exhibition. Ori Gersht's short film Will You Dance For Me is interesting for us - it uses oral testimony, like we will be doing, but goes far beyond just recording someone talking. It might give us some ideas. Think especially about:
- Idea of creative collaboration between artist and interviewee, and of looking at the emotional response of the interviewee, and the act of actually telling the story, as well as the story itself
- The use of 2 screens in a small space, and interaction between the screens
- Using material spoken in a language other than English
- The way sound is used
- Slowness - not trying to cram in a ton of testimony, but just using one resonant story and giving it space
- Restaging things that happened (not necessarily realistically) as a way of commenting on them
- Weaving two different narrators together as a way of highlighting how a story is constructed
- Mismatching words and images, as a way of commenting on the (un)reliability of history and memory
- Again, using languages other than English.