ITP 2012: Day 20 – Nevine Nizar

I work as a curator at the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Egypt and I was thrilled to join the ITP where I can get a deeper understanding of curatorial work and museums. I have a great interest in the exhibitions and displays; therefore today is my lucky day, as we have many sessions about different types of exhibitions. Ian started the day at 9.30 am with a brief introduction about the BM’s galleries, followed by James Robinson’s session about curatorial research for temporary exhibition.

I was confused about different types of Exhibitions, in terms of, how they should be managed and how the curators, conservators, designers, interpreters arrange their work in sequence to produce an Exhibition? But, thanks to Rachel Dagnall’s wonderful presentation about Project Management, everything became very clear in my mind.

At 12 pm Jon Ould & Nick Newberry gave a talk about designing exhibitions and the role of 2D and 3D design. They explained the process of installing an exhibition, starting with the scope document created by the curators, the use of sketches, models and printed plans, right up to the building stage.

After the lunch break, we had an interested session with Richard Parkinson about the permanent gallery centered on the wall paintings from the tomb-chapel of Nebamun. It was amazing to see how the fragments were rejoined to create a single wall scene, and how to make people experience the atmosphere of the original tomb chapel. It was very challenging!

Finally, we have a session about photography with John Williams and Ivor Kerslake, followed by an exciting tour in one of the photography studio, where we saw their equipment and how they use different effects to bring the object to life.

I certainly intend to share such valuable information with my colleagues when I get back home, hoping to approach broader objectives in my work.

 

Nevine Nizar

Egypt