Tuesday 8th October, Constructing a narrative...

I started the day by attending Katie’s insightful lecture; she presented examples of numerous exhibitions and what design techniques they use to engage visitors. Although, the one that stood out most to me was the Holocaust memorial building in Berlin. Architect Peter Eisenman designed it to remind people of the horrors of the Holocaust by using scale, void like spaces and a restricted one-way flow he created uneasiness and entrapment. While scaled up materials such as concrete and metal dwarfed guests to make them feel small and vulnerable.

Interiors and floorplan of the Holocaust Memorial Building in Berlin.

After this lecture I realised that an exhibition space is not just about showing things but also taking visitors through an experience. I started rethinking my ideas and asking myself what I still wanted to explore, and what and how things would change. I met up with my group and we began discussing our thoughts, it was extremely productive hearing other people’s ideas for the exhibition as it made me rethink my own. For example I wanted to make the first space impactful however, others wanted to do the opposite and start by taking visitors through the process of making the outfits in order to make them meaningful. We decided we would create a narrative, by showing the creative process the outfits go through, for instance: we begin with the ideas, the inspiration and then materials and finish with the collection and the outfit.

In continuation we begun making a draft model to get a sense of how much space we had and then placed smaller concept models inside, such as the different types of fabrics we would use. At the same time we were researching Harris Reed and in an interview with Architectural Digest, he said, “I am obsessed with lighting” and described his house as a “fun and playful” so we decided to explore how these two elements could play with one another. We begun by taking crochet squares Annie had made and shinning light through them, which made cool and impressive patterns, we also explored how different fabrics filter light, what happens when they are layered or when the light source changes. We took pictures of all of this and the reason we were investigating fabrics first, was because all outfits begin as fabric, so we decided to begin our concept exploration there too. Reed’s house will become our main source of inspiration, as it is a reflection of his character similar to his work and I am now going to do a client analysis on Harris Reed.

Exploring how light plays with fabric.