Putting it On: Team Processes in the Development
of Three Evolution Exhibitions
at Natural History Museums
Elijah Mermin
For at least a decade, many museums in the United States and elsewhere have been using interdepartmental teams to create museum exhibitions. This is commonly called the team approach. In the team approach, curators, exhibit developers, designers, educators, and even fabricators work together throughout the entire process of exhibit development. According to a recent survey conducted by museologists Jay Rounds and Nancy McIlvaney (2000:4), many museums have adopted the team approach instead of what the authors refer to as the “linear approach.” In that traditional model, the project moved sequentially from one professional specialty to the next (the typical sequence being curator> designer> fabricator> educator).
Exhibit professionals who participated in this survey enthusiastically supported the team approach, but they also voiced caution. They cited the lack of commitment to a common vision on the part of some team members and intra-team conflict as frequent problems (Rounds and McIlvaney 2000:7). Given the ambivalence regarding the effectiveness of the team approach, analysis of the way interdepartmental teams encounter and deal with problems could point to ways to improve it.
For my master’s project in museum studies at John F. Kennedy University I studied the constitution, dynamics, and outcomes of three exhibit teams at natural history museums. The exhibitions examined in my study—all devoted to the history and evolution of life on Earth—were: Life Through Time (LTT) at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Life Over Time (LOT) at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and Prehistoric Journey (PJ) at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Denver. These exhibitions opened between 1990 and 1995. Each presented a chronological history of life on Earth. They shared many themes, such as the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, natural selection, and mass extinctions.
During the course of my study it struck me that all these exhibition teams began with similar goals and objectives but, partly as the result of the team process, produced distinctly different exhibitions. I identified a number of factors that led to different representations of the same subject. Some of the important factors were: a) each museum had unique priorities for developing these exhibitions, b) the institutional priorities for developing these exhibitions led to the formation of particular types of exhibit teams, and c) the constitution of particular types of exhibit teams led to different choices regarding the main messages and their delivery.
I also identified conflicting personal agendas among team members and unanticipated events as factors that altered the results. My study chronicled how these factors affected the development processes from team formation to exhibition opening.
Different Institutional Priorities Lead to Different Kinds of Exhibition
Teams
Each museum had its own priorities and purposes for developing these exhibitions. LTT at the California Academy of Sciences, developed between 1983 and 1990, was a curatorial-initiated project. (According to Peter Rodda, the former Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the California Academy of Sciences, the germinal idea for LTT was suggested by then-Director and scientist Dr. Frank Talbot in 1983. Personal communication, March 2002.) According to Linda Kulik, the lead designer for LTT, two principal reasons motivated the museum’s curators: a) the museum’s scientific research and collections were organized along evolutionary principles, but nowhere on the museum floor was evolution explicitly addressed, and b) the widespread belief in creationism in American society challenged the museum’s curators to place a high priority on teaching evolution (Kulik, personal communication, April 2002). Thus, because LTT was to address curatorial concerns, the decision-making authority was placed in the hands of museum curators.
The Board of Trustees at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science initiated PJ. This exhibition, developed between 1989 and 1995, was proposed as the feature attraction for the museum’s new building expansion completed in 1987. According to Dr. Richard Stucky, the Science Project Director of PJ, the board originally planned it as a dinosaur exhibition. The board intended PJ to provide an educational experience with displays of the many discoveries of dinosaur skeletons in the Denver area. The board stressed developing PJ to increase museum attendance, to showcase scientific research about dinosaurs, and to provide a high-quality educational program. The equal allocation of authority on the exhibit team to curatorial, education, and exhibits departments signaled the board’s priorities.
Life Over Time (LOT) at the Field Museum of Natural History, developed between 1985 and 1994, formed part of a major effort to reinstall the museum’s permanent exhibitions, some of which had not been updated since the 1950s. To direct this project, the Field Museum hired Michael Spock in 1985, then-Director of the Boston Children’s Museum. In the year he arrived the Field Museum drew only 800,000 visitors, or what the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History drew in 1941. While increasing attendance was a priority, Spock did not want to sacrifice the educational integrity of the museum. To tackle this challenge Spock created a special position—the “exhibit developer”—to lead and provide vision for the exhibit teams.
Exhibit developers retained many customary curatorial duties on exhibition projects including researching information, selecting objects, and managing others. However, exhibit developers were not subject matter specialists, but skilled communicators with a talent for engaging a wide variety of museum visitors. Under Spock’s direction, they closed many single-subject type of exhibitions and replaced them with more engaging interdisciplinary displays. In short, the Board of Trustees transferred powers for developing LOT into the hands of expert communicators—rather than subject matter specialists—in order to create attractive yet substantial exhibitions that could draw large crowds.
Three Distinct Exhibitions: How Team Leaders’ Personal Agendas Brought
About Widely Differing Results.
Because so many factors drive and alter the development of an exhibition (e.g., financial constraints, a museum’s collections, or the amount of space allotted for public programs), a coherent analysis of the efforts and outcomes of the team process depended on a selective approach. During the course of my study, however, I saw that the delegation of authority to particular individuals on exhibit teams—especially curators and exhibit developers—led to some of the choices made by each team (I summarize the different concerns of Exhibit Developers and Exhibit Designers, and of Curators in the Afterthoughts section).
Life Through Time
At the California Academy of Sciences, the delegation of authority to the museum’s curators led to decisions that emphasized the integrity of the scientific information of LTT over the quality of the educational experiences. Like the other exhibitions I examined, the main theme of LTT is the chronological history of life on Earth. But LTT is unique in focusing on evolutionary relationships by the classification system called cladistics. Briefly, cladistics organizes relationships between species as a series of branching points based on their geneological relationships to common ancestors.
According to Peter Rodda, a curator on the LTT
exhibit team, cladistics captured the interest of the museum’s curators,
but they disagreed about the way it should be incorporated into the exhibition
(personal communication, March 2002). Because cladistics was a new system
of classification for the museum, and one that challenged even some of
the museum’s scientists, Eugene Behlen, then-Director of Public Programs,
voiced concerns about accessibility for the average museum visitor. These
concerns led the curators to reduce the amount of text about cladistics
in the exhibit labels. However, it remained an important theme as the
curators chose all the exhibition’s fossils for their importance in cladistic
analysis.
Figure 1. Life Through Time touch
station
The decision to use cladistic methods distinguished LTT from other U.S. natural history exhibitions when it opened in 1990. Visitors to the exhibition’s displays obtained new perspectives about the ways scientists linked evolutionary relations between the fossils to living animals and plants. For example, one exhibit boldly states “birds are dinosaurs;” here visitors learn how cladistics has helped scientists see a much closer evolutionary relationship between birds and dinosaurs. Previously, with the use of older classification systems (e.g., phenetics), scientists had not seen this connection.
CAS’s Exhibits Department, charged with shaping messages
determined by the curators, had little authority regarding the decision
to use cladistics. In an effort to meet the educational needs of potential
visitors, the exhibits department (Lead Editor, Joyce Gilio-Stern) drafted
label copy that was based on careful audience research. However, in February
1990, ten weeks before the exhibition was scheduled to open in April 1990,
the museum curators rejected the completed label copy, and delayed the
opening of the exhibition until June in order to write new labels.
Figure 2. Life Through Time shark
tank
According to a memo written by Roy Eisenhardt, then-Director of the museum, the label copy at the time did not achieve, “...a consistency between the concepts and terminology of LIFEmap” (This in-house document was written on February 16th, 1990 by Roy Eisenhardt. I obtained this document from Michele Wellck, the archivist for the California Academy of Sciences.). LIFEmap was the name given to an essential interactive computer exhibit that the curators developed to enable visitors to trace the evolutionary lineages of many organisms. The final label copy incorporated more information about cladistics.
Because LTT had not been evaluated extensively
with visitors, I asked Linda Kulik, lead designer for LTT, whom
the exhibition seems to serve best. Kulik said the exhibit was at a “higher
end” for most people and added, “the hall turns out to be very successful
for college students. Local universities use it quite a bit and give very
positive feedback about it” (personal communication, April 2002).
Prehistoric Journey
Curators initially directed the exhibition team for PJ at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, although educators and exhibits staff contributed from the beginning. Right at the start in early 1989 Stucky persuaded the Board of Trustees, who had wanted to focus only on the dinosaurs, to include them as part of a broad program about the history of life on Earth. After developing this history of life theme into a preliminary plan the team submitted a grant request to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for $1.3 million in early 1991.
The grant was rejected for a number of reasons; the rejection letter explained that the exhibition plan appeared too traditional. Notably the plan did not describe the visitor experience (In-house document at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science: “National Science Foundation Informal Science Education Panel Summary,” October 29, 1991). For example, the grant request outlined major themes and messages, but did not describe any exhibits.
After the failure of the grant request changes occurred both in the approach of the exhibition and in the makeup of the team. A key change was the establishment of a triad interpretive team to direct and develop the content and design of PJ. It was composed of Frances Kruger as Exhibit Developer, Dr. Kirk Johnson as Curator of Paleontology, and Rebecca Smith as Project Educator. Both Kruger and Johnson were new to the project. A triad management team was also formed; this three-member team, which included Dr. Stucky, Rebecca Smith, and Project Manager Brian McLaren, handled the administrative duties and managed the interpretive team. Roles between the two teams often overlapped. For example, Stucky and Johnson collaborated successfully on many interpretive decisions.
Figure 3. Prehistoric Journey:
real fossils
The interpretive team decided right away to structure the exhibition around key events in the history of life (e.g., the evolution of multi-cellular life or the rise of the dinosaurs) rather than emphasize geologic time periods (e.g., the Precambrian Period or the Cenozoic Era). The team also decided to center the exhibition around a series of dioramas. These scenes depicted extinct ecological communities such as ancient coral reef ecosystems. The curators wanted to ensure that the dioramas would represent accurately how life appeared through Earth’s history. They also wanted visitors to understand how different branches of science such as paleontology and geology, contributed to the scientific understanding of the fossil record.
The concern for accurate science led Stucky and Johnson
to base each diorama on a single fossil site, local when possible, rather
than a composite. When I asked Johnson how this latter decision contributed
to the work he said, “in a lot of ways this structure allowed decisions
to happen ‘by themselves’ because the basic framework was ‘it’s gotta
be local, gotta be accurate, gotta be based on real fossils’” (Johnson,
personal communication, March 2002). This decision led to the idea to
place evidence areas in alcoves adjacent to each diorama. In the evidence
areas, the interpretive team collaborated on exhibits with fossils and
photographs from the actual site on which the dioramas were based. The
evidence areas also contain exhibits that explain techniques and principles
fundamental to studying the history of life.
Figure 4. Prehistoric Journey: evidence case
To ensure that the evidence areas would help inform the full range of museum visitors, Kruger proposed layering the information in them to three levels of interest: a discovery level, an exploration level, and a study level. The discovery level provided information and hands-on exhibits for young children and novice visitors; the team communicated the main messages of the exhibition at the exploration level; and important tertiary stories were displayed at the study level.
The decisions to present exhibits according to three levels of interest and to center the exhibition around the interpretation of historical ecosystems resulted from, in part, the allocation of authority between an educator, an exhibit developer, and a curator. For example, the decision to frame the exhibition upon the interpretation of reconstructed ancient ecological communities addressed Stucky’s and Johnson’s concerns to present cutting-edge information that included the work of other scientists as well as their own.
The evidence areas also met the scientists’ concerns that visitors understand how many branches of sciences contribute to an understanding of evolutionary biology. The use of immersive dioramas and the layering of information according to three levels of interest addressed the educator’s and exhibit developer’s concerns to provide an enjoyable and accessible educational experience for a broad range of museum visitors.
Life Over Time
The development of Life Over Time at the Field Museum contrasts sharply with the team processes at CAS and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Four exhibit developers, led by Janet Kamien as Director of Exhibitions, directed the planning of LOT. Creating LOT required exhibit developers to work closely with the curatorial staff. Curators contributed a great deal to the scientific messages of the exhibition, but all the important decisions rested with the exhibit developers. Curators made suggestions, but could object only if scientific accuracy was at stake. The exhibit developers were careful to incorporate many curatorial suggestions. Still, they were equally, if not more, focused on presenting information in ways that engaged visitors on many cognitive and emotional levels.
Kamien set the organizing theme of LOT. After weekly meetings with her team of exhibit developers and at the urgings of the curators, she decided to implement an interdisciplinary approach to the history of life. Kamien worked with the exhibit developers and curators to conceive a program that focused on the “hows” of evolution—the concepts important to understanding how life evolved such as natural selection, geologic time, and genetics—as well as the “whats” of evolution, or displays that focused on landmark events and periods in the history of life on Earth. Eventually the team designed a floor plan that alternated rooms containing concepts crucial to understanding how life evolved such as geologic time, fossilization, and natural selection, with rooms that presented key eras and events in the history of life.
Figure 5. Life Over Time: diorama
When the team tested this alternating sequence of “whats” and “hows” with museum visitors, they found that many visitors were much more engaged by the “whats.” That is, visitors preferred presentations that depicted what forms of life appeared throughout Earth’s history rather than presentations about how evolution works.
Committed to presenting the “hows” of evolution, the team of exhibit developers combined humor and visual metaphors in their exhibits in order to engage visitors about speciation, geologic time, genetics, and other concepts. For example, to illustrate the role of chance in evolution the exhibit developers designed interactive exhibits that incorporated gambling metaphors such as slot machines and horse racing. To give visitors a sense for the climate and geography conditions of the different time periods described, Kamien developed the “Evolutionary Broadcast System” newscasts. These newscasts, hosted by actual newscasters from a local Chicago television station, offer long-term forecasts regarding Earth’s climate and geography that correspond to particular eras depicted in LOT.
Figure 6. Life Over Time: Ice Age “movie poster”
Kamien also was concerned that visitors might not recognize the immense biological and geological changes that occurred from one era to the next. To communicate the differences between geologic eras, Kamien encouraged her team to make each room very distinct from the others. In this way, LOT metaphorically represents the vastly different worlds that existed at various points in Earth’s history.
For example, “First Life,” a section about the origins of life, features a mechanical puppet show that depicts the evolution of the first life forms on Earth amid a landscape of erupting volcanoes and tumultuous seas. Advancing many millions of years later, to “Life on Land,” a section about early terrestrial life, visitors walk through an immersive environment that simulates an ancient hot and humid forest. In short, the planning of LOT was driven by the exhibit developers’ concerns to engage all visitors, especially novice visitors and children.
To sum up, the allocation of authority on these exhibit teams explains a great deal about the different choices regarding not only the main messages of the exhibitions, but also the delivery of those messages.
LTT at the California Academy of Sciences, as a curatorial-led exhibition, focuses heavily on the classification of life via cladistics—a choice that privileges the curators’ interests and best serves a sophisticated adult audience.
LOT at the Field Museum, as an exhibit developer-led team, showcases exhibits that uses, in the words of Kamien “every trick in the book” (without sacrificing the depth and accuracy of the science), to attract and engage visitors. Although it is an exhibition for everyone, the liberal use of interactive exhibits, humor, and drama appeal particularly to novice visitors and children.
PJ at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was driven, in part, by curatorial concerns for scientific accuracy and the presentation of leading scientific research. These curatorial concerns, combined with the exhibit developer’s and educator’s intentions for providing an accessible and educational experience for novice and expert visitors of all ages and backgrounds, resulted in a balanced presentation for a wide array of visitors.
In the end the constitution of each exhibit team and the relative empowerment of their members led to exhibits that favored different audiences. For example, because curators led the development of LTT at CAS, the exhibition especially serves audiences who had particular interest in biology. In contrast, with exhibit developers in charge of LOT at the Field Museum, the team was careful to include audiences with limited interest in the subject material.
The Agendas of Individual Leaders
Individual team leaders brought personal concerns to the planning process. These concerns contributed to distinctly different developments. Kamien encouraged the use of offbeat humor and interactive exhibits to grab and hold the attention of visitors.
Lowell Dingus, the lead curator on the LTT team, possessed strong social and leadership skills; these qualities, in addition to his prestige as an vertebrate paleontologist from University California at Berkeley, enabled him to bring the talents of exhibits and curatorial departments together on a creative and original presentation about the history and evolution of life. Dingus’s suggestion to incorporate cladistics in LTT required the support of the Curator of Herpetology, Jacque Gauthier, who played a crucial role in motivating curatorial consensus for cladistics. According to Joyce Gilio-Stern, the lead editor on LTT, without Gauthier’s “unwavering support for Lowell Dingus during the early stages, and [without] his continued guidance, scientific integrity, dedication and energy throughout, the exhibit would have fallen quite flat” (Joyce Gilio-Stern, e-mail communication, June 6, 2002).
On PJ, the contributions of Richard Stucky, Frances Kruger, Kirk Johnson, and Rebecca Smith were crucial to the success of the exhibition. Together they were able to present an ecological interpretation of the history of life in ways that appealed to a variety of visitors. Their success owed a lot to the way they related to their audience and to each other.
It is clear that a simple analysis of the effects of institutional priorities, staff structures, and the unforeseen is complicated by the ways that the personal agendas of the teams’ leaders influenced the results. How an exhibition evolves depends on the vision and direction set by team members and on the rather unpredictable ways that team members interact.
Lessons Learned
In my study, I saw that institutional motivations for putting up an exhibition influenced the way authority was allocated. In turn, these allocations influenced the decisions that the exhibit teams made. From a sample size of three no one could make universal recommendations to improve team function. But, other natural history museums have also developed exhibitions about the history and evolution of life. A larger study might lead to more specific recommendations about the effect of the allocation of authority between curators and exhibits staff and education staff on exhibit teams.
However, I can draw two recommendations from my study:
Recommendation #1: Clarify the target audience at the beginning of the
team process and reaffirm this audience throughout the process.
In all three exhibit teams in question, discussions about the target audience took place during the development process, but except at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, (where extensive formative evaluation addressed their "levels of interest" approach), it is not clear how frequently these discussions occurred after the initial planning stages. At CAS, it was unclear whether such discussions resulted in a consensus. More importantly, it is unclear whether the CAS and the Field Museum teams considered how specific elements could serve their target audiences. Teams that identify and reaffirm the target audience(s) throughout the process may avoid a great deal of confusion while developing the exhibition. A well-defined view of the target audience also enhances team “chemistry.” When strong personalities push new ideas other team members can point to established priorities.
Recommendation #2: Expect the Unexpected on Lengthy Projects.
Large exhibitions in development take on a life of their own. Teams can lay down an organized framework to plan an exhibition, but some circumstances are impossible to predict. For example, key changes in personnel occurred on all these exhibit teams, which led to unforeseen changes. Clearly, exhibit planners need to be ready for unpredictable events. One way to safeguard objectives is to carefully document the team process. When unexpected twists and turns occur, the team retains a point of reference to inform future decisions.
Conclusion
I conducted this study to examine how the team process affects the development of exhibitions in natural history museums. I identified institutional priorities, the allocation of leadership, the personal qualities and agendas of individuals on exhibit teams, and the effect of unexpected developments as aspects that together explain the way these exhibitions evolved. When I began this study I did not anticipate that the exhibitions would be so influenced by unforeseen events such as the additions or losses of key staff members. For example, the arrival of Dingus at CAS, and the appointment of Kruger and Johnson to the team at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science led to dramatic changes.
Given that exhibit development proceeds in unpredictable ways, exhibit planners should accept that the original vision for an exhibition will change. Exhibit teams need not fear when their original vision shifts because better ideas may emerge. At the conclusion of my study an image of the team process emerged: to see exhibit teams as an extended brainstorming session filled with participants’ ideas and agendas. In the course of time, ideas will take on forms determined by the constraints of the work in process. The creative part, but also the hard part, is to mount the exhibition.
Afterthoughts
In my study, I made certain assumptions about differences between “curators” and “exhibits staff” (i.e., exhibit developers and designers) at natural history museums, especially regarding their interests and agendas towards planning exhibitions. The training and inclination of curators predispose them to communicate to a more knowledgeable audience, particularly their professional peers and colleagues. Exhibits staff are generally more focused on engaging a broader public, particularly children and novice visitors. Because of these different inclinations toward the audience and the subject material, tensions can arise between curators and exhibits staff when they work together on exhibitions.
Reference
Rounds, Jay and Nancy McIlveney. 2000. “Who’s Using the Team Approach? How’s It Going?” The Exhibitionist vol. 19 no. 1, Spring 2000.
Elijah Mermin is a museum educator at the Oakland Museum of California.
He recently completed his M.A. in museum studies from John F. Kennedy
University. He may be reached at elijahmermin@yahoo.com.