This presentation will examine a work in progress - designing an exhibition which will connect urban street environment with a zone at the future permanent exhibition of the Estonian National Museum. The preliminary test exhibition “Secret cities” will be opened at spring 2014.
“Secret cities” explores how children and young people create urban space through their everyday practices, looks how they use and experience the city and how public space acquires meanings through usage practices. Exhibition covers both relevant categories in children’s perceptions regarding the cities (freedom, fear, security, experiences, play etc), insights to the sensory aspects of urban space as well as different meanings, functions and practices associated with the space, showing that public space can mean different things for different users. Through outlining a variety of spatial experiences and encouraging usage of the exhibition elements, it offers possibility to experience and rethink one’s own usage of city and engage with urban space in new ways.
The exhibition is developed across three domains: urban space, involving a semi-private residential area, public and open exhibition space in the museum and digital environment which altogether serve as experience and interaction space for the users. Challenges of designing the exhibition have to do with linking both digital and analog practices in a meaningful way across different dimensions. It involves location specific and location free content; it is both open and closed in terms of user interaction; it deals with outdoor space as a fluid and affective environment where the key is enabling meaningful connection between visitors and curated content. A challenge lies within leaving the walled exhibition space and facing the environment which changes according to daily and seasonal rhythms (changing temperature, light conditions etc). Connecting different domains can be conceptualized as negotiations between fixed and mobile dimensions of the exhibition.
