The Library’s Alice in Wonderland exhibition has now been open for a month. I have been pleased by how busy the gallery has been and hope that the visitors have enjoyed the exhibition. When I give tours of the exhibition I try to include some information about how it was created as I know that people like to hear a bit about what goes on behind the scenes. I thought that it might also be an interesting subject for my second blog about the exhibition.

Graphic design by Fiona Barlow of Anonymous and 3D design by LYN Atelier

When my colleague, Andie and I were first asked to create an exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland we knew that we would need to have quite a specific narrative focus as the Library has lots of material relating to the book which could be displayed! We chose to focus on the enduring popularity of Carroll’s story and the way in which it has remained true to his original story despite over a century of re-illustrations, adaptations and parodies. With this narrative in place we started to think about the collection items that we would like to display and began to look at lots of different items from Carroll’s handwritten diaries and letters to printed books and sound recordings. We had to be selective and concentrate on those items that would help to tell the story as well as thinking about how visual they would be to display and how easy they would be to read! We were lucky enough to be able to get lots of useful advice from colleagues across the Library about items in their collections that we could show.

At the same time we started to speak to graphic and 3D designers about how we would like the exhibition to look. I am really pleased with the exhibition design which uses a simple colour palette of black, red, white and dark grey and takes inspiration from the playing cards in Carroll’s story. The colours also allow the collection items, many of which are include beautiful illustrations, to really shine. Fiona, the graphic designer, suggested that we incorporate quotes from the book into the exhibition design and they have been printed on the fabric which is wrapped around the frame that runs throughout the gallery. The quotations look great and it is a lovely way to include text from the book in the very fabric (no pun intended) of the exhibition.

Graphic design by Fiona Barlow of Anonymous

The design also includes instructions on how to navigate around the gallery that are very much in the spirit of Alice. Finally the large tag hanging above the gallery takes inspiration from the ‘drink me’ tag on the bottle which Alice finds down the rabbit hole.

 

Graphic design by Fiona Barlow of Anonymous

Once the exhibition design and item list had been finalised we had to choose the page openings to be displayed carefully so that we didn’t want to end up with 25 pictures of the Cheshire Cat! We then began writing the exhibition text. This included seven panel texts, 12 chapter summaries and 55 labels so it took some time. It was time well spent though as I have been able to share some of the knowledge I gained when giving exhibition tours.

The exhibition (and the Alice pop up shop) are open over Christmas so please do visit if you are in London during the festive period.