Display

The other day I had a meeting with Jason about my display and I'm pumped! We talked about what message I wanted the audience to get from my display and about museum exhibits. I like thinking about the display as a thesis paper: what's my thesis, how do I support it? I really want the audience to understand this event in the way I've come to understand it: it was horrible and tragic but that doesn't mean the people involved were monsters. So, highlight the tragedy while making the circumstances under which it occurred a little more understandable. We talked about other events throughout history where people acted similarly, where they believed in something apparently crazy and impossible (witchcraft or alien invasion), or persecuted others for different beliefs (political or religious). Jason mentioned an exhibit he'd seen of volcanic eruptions over time, some big, some small... and it seemed like a perfect concept.
So here is my plan, I'm going to create a timeline leading backwards from today to the time of the Salem Witch trails of relevant events to put the show in context. I'm going to incorporate audio and video media to create dissonance and chaos a bit too in order to add the the emotional aspect in the way that the sound design of the show increases the intensity of emotion. I think it's a nice metaphor for the conflicting and overwhelming information the people of Salem received that contributed to the chaos and tragedy. The timeline will go backwards so it will be like the audience is walking back through time to enter the show and through the information they recieve will be brought closer to a time which is so distant from our own on many levels. For information about the time period of the show I want to provide some context of the political and religious atmosphere and emphasize the real human people who experienced these events. I wanted to provide pictures of them but so few were availale that I decided against it, instead opting for photos of the cast in make-up so that the audience had a visual link to understand who they were reaading about. In contrast to the color and noise of the videos, the pictures will be printed in muted colors, tying into the minimalistic quality of the set. I like the idea that the somber faces will attract the eye without distracting from the information they accompany.