After visiting Sutton Hoo yesterday, I decided to visit Ipswich Museum today, hoping to explore how they labelled their exhibits, and the method in which they displayed things there.
Overall, I felt this wasn’t actually the most beneficial visit – and certainly not as beneficial as Sutton Hoo yesterday, as the museum was basically set up for children, and labelled and organised as such – meaning that the labelling system wasn’t as thorough or clear as it was at Sutton Hoo yesterday. Additionally, as the museum isn’t a site of historical significance itself, everything inside it was arranged in dioramas or cases – rather than reflecting history as it happened in the building as is the case with Sutton Hoo.
Having said this, I had hoped that due to the large number of taxidermy exhibits and archival artefacts that they have at Ipswich Museum, I would be able to gain some insight into how to organise and display my illustrations. Again however, as the majority of the items in the collection are taxidermy animals, the method of display was rather different to anything that I could achieve with my drawings. I did take photographs for reference though, and of possible later use, the ones which document the glass display cases are of most relevance I feel.
The second photo pictured below had the most relevance for me in terms of the subject of the collection, although the method of display was different (in a case, rather than displayed on a wall). However, it has given me some food for thought on how I label the work as a whole: whether I use one overarching label for the entire wall, separate labels for each drawing (in addition to the botanical labels I am creating), or create a list system for the individual drawings with number references. I have not fully decided what I will do in regards to this, however, I feel either the first (one overarching label) or the third (the list style) are the most probable formats I would use.
