Exhibits Division: Reimagining Exhibits

by Laurie D. T. Mann, Exhibits Director

There's lots of really cool Exhibits stuff that travels to Worldcon every year, but fans rarely get a chance to see much of it — in part because we've tended to rely upon cheap and easy to set-up arrangements of tables and art show panels in rectangles, and then to put as much stuff as we can on and around those tables and panels.

But just putting stuff out on tables or up on art show panels doesn't actually make the materials we're trying to show off any more accessible or understandable to fans — old or new.

So we want to try taking another look at how exhibits are organized, particularly the fannish exhibits. We want to think about what the Worldcon history materials, the bidding history materials, the fanzine materials, the fan history materials would have to tell us, if we were to try arranging them not as little discrete topic areas, but in ways that give us a more integrated sense of how our various fandoms have changed and grown.

Ways of Arranging Fannish Exhibit Materials

One way we could think about reorganizing fannish exhibits material by time.

One thought that's occurred to us is to organize these materials more-or-less by decade.

Picture a 1950s exhibit. This exhibit might include:

• timeline with highlights of the '50s
• photos/personalities from the '50s
• Hugo info from the '50s
• Worldcon, convention info/materials from the '50s
• fanzines from the '50s
• SF book/movie/TV info from the '50s
• a conversation nook
• a reference area — giving fans a way to find out more

Or imagine an exhibit that explores the different ways fans have met, communicated and connected over the years ... and how they might do so in the future. What new communication devices are on the horizons and just beginning to make it to drawing boards? What conceptions about future technology and communication might flow from the pens, brushes and computers of many artistis?

As with Program, we believe Exhibits can encourage conversations among fans, both old and new — but this is another project that we can use some help on.

Boston — Local Help Wanted

Since we intend to reorganize existing materials, we need to have a better idea of what's available for display in the "warehouse" of fannish materials. We want to start to inventory and label Worldcon exhibits materials currently in storage.

If you're local to Boston and might be interested in some weekend work sessions to help figure out what we've got to work with, please volunteer!

Help us focus on interesting material, figure out how to label it well so that both fans and non-fans alike understand why the material is important to us, and think about how we can best show it off.

Tell Us What You'd Like to See ...

Comments on reimagining Exhibits? Please post them to our Reimagining Exhibits blog.