Touring exhibitions with participatory web components

[Megan Sheehy]

Can anyone give me some good examples of touring exhibitions that have established effective online components to go with the exhibition? In particular I am looking for ones where there is a participatory element.

Nick Cave—the exhibition is one good example that I have found so far...

http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/exhibitions/nickcave/
Nick Cave – the exhibition is a touring exhibition from the Arts Centre, Melbourne and Visions Australia. The website developed while the exhibition was at the Western Australian Museum contains curator’s notes, history, a gallery of images, downloadable education kits and a ‘stories’ section for contributions from the community.

[Lynda Kelly]

Thnx for this post Megan. I too am very interested in case studies as I'm thinking about something similar for our new exhibition called Menagerie which will tour and is also a joint exhibition with Object Gallery so that adds another exciting dimension I think!

[Cindy Fallsen]

The Nick Cave exhibition is pretty cool. I like the way that it has tabs to the right in a well designed way. I wonder if there has been Multivariate Testing on this page. This would help determine if it has been effective. You also have to be careful when doing these sorts of interactive exhibits. If people do not have Satelite Internet or cable, sometimes the performance is a barrier rather than a help. I would be sure to do this sort of research before developing out the exhibit.

[Kellian Adams]

The PEM museum in Salem, MA has an exhibit that includes a completely addictive online "paper doll" program.

http://www.pem.org/sites/iris/

It's a little bit hidden on the site but it's also showcased in the exhibit, which made me go home and look for it online. The object is using the online "paper doll" application to make artistic-looking outfits from only Iris Apfel's wardrobe, which you can then save, print, email, make into your Facebook profile, send to friends, start "Iris outfit" competitions and do all the fabulous things that come with a good viral media bug. The exhibit didn't have an amazing overall web interface like the Nick Cave exhibit but I thought that this one little piece was a really effective component and it goes to show that you can get a lot of mileage from one really good tool! Plus the exhibit was fantastic, which helps!