Jack
Major
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2011
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- 6,347
On a recent visit to the United Kingdom I interviewed a number of museum curators about their displays. I was lucky enough to visit the Rifles Museum in Winchester and view their Waterloo diorama, The Royal Armouries in Leeds (Waterloo and Agincourt dioramas) and also speak to the Perry brothers (who are really nice people!). They had never heard of Treefrog so I suspect that they may well not even have heard of me!
The Waterloo diorama in the Rifles Museum has just had an upgrade and now includes some lights/graphics which appears to have been a rather successful ‘update’ of what some may perceive as an outmoded display type. They museum is very proud of their work with the diorama.
The visit to the Royal Armouries in Leeds was equally fascinating and the people there just as generous with their time and of course very welcoming. They have a Waterloo diorama by William Siborne completed in 1843. He also was the creator of the one held by the National Army Museum. In addition, the museum has just recently acquired an Agincourt diorama peopled by figures by Perry Miniatures. I had a really interesting interview with three of their curators which hinted at where dioramas may be headed in the future. The Siborne diorama was viewed differently in the sense that it is both artefact and display. The Agincourt diorama almost had a reluctant respect. There was a perception that it might not be ‘history’ enough, but this view was softened by the interest shown in it by thousands of visitors to the museum. It certainly looks great although as it is set into the table you look down on it. A better view was interestingly provided by a mirror arrangement like a trench periscope set into the table (for want of a better description) that allowed you to see what sections looked like from the side. I have included some pictures (not mine!) to give you a sense of what it looked like.
One of the curators did some of the work on the Culloden Battlefield and Visitor Centre display which is recorded on the attached youtube link. Though there was a sense from the interviews as a whole that there is a renewed interest in the old style diorama, when you put everything together that the different people said, it may be a last flowering prior to the increased use of technology such as virtual reality. This would place a visitor in the battle where they can hear ‘arrows go by’ rather than looking at what is, in reality, a static model. Andy of K&C also made the observation that light and sound is the next frontier when he was in Brisbane in July.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6R5lusax0c
As an aside, the Armouries shop included backpacks that looked like grenades, pencil cases that did likewise, plastic swords, helmets etc. Outside you could ‘fire’ a bren gun, vickers gun and a .303 for one pound as part of an interactive experience. I asked the curators about this as ‘history’ given their views of dioramas. No-one seemed keen to own that part of the experience but as I said later, the chance to fire a crossbow (which I don’t think was available on the day) seemed more an authentic experience given that I believe you ‘really fired’ a bolt and the age of the weapon gave it greater kudos. It gave me a chance to rather wittily observe “Well, as the gun lobby says, it’s not crossbows that kill people, it's people who kill people”. I am not sure what success I would have had with the crossbow, but that joke had a 66 percent strike rate in terms of who laughed!
The Waterloo diorama in the Rifles Museum has just had an upgrade and now includes some lights/graphics which appears to have been a rather successful ‘update’ of what some may perceive as an outmoded display type. They museum is very proud of their work with the diorama.
The visit to the Royal Armouries in Leeds was equally fascinating and the people there just as generous with their time and of course very welcoming. They have a Waterloo diorama by William Siborne completed in 1843. He also was the creator of the one held by the National Army Museum. In addition, the museum has just recently acquired an Agincourt diorama peopled by figures by Perry Miniatures. I had a really interesting interview with three of their curators which hinted at where dioramas may be headed in the future. The Siborne diorama was viewed differently in the sense that it is both artefact and display. The Agincourt diorama almost had a reluctant respect. There was a perception that it might not be ‘history’ enough, but this view was softened by the interest shown in it by thousands of visitors to the museum. It certainly looks great although as it is set into the table you look down on it. A better view was interestingly provided by a mirror arrangement like a trench periscope set into the table (for want of a better description) that allowed you to see what sections looked like from the side. I have included some pictures (not mine!) to give you a sense of what it looked like.
One of the curators did some of the work on the Culloden Battlefield and Visitor Centre display which is recorded on the attached youtube link. Though there was a sense from the interviews as a whole that there is a renewed interest in the old style diorama, when you put everything together that the different people said, it may be a last flowering prior to the increased use of technology such as virtual reality. This would place a visitor in the battle where they can hear ‘arrows go by’ rather than looking at what is, in reality, a static model. Andy of K&C also made the observation that light and sound is the next frontier when he was in Brisbane in July.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6R5lusax0c
As an aside, the Armouries shop included backpacks that looked like grenades, pencil cases that did likewise, plastic swords, helmets etc. Outside you could ‘fire’ a bren gun, vickers gun and a .303 for one pound as part of an interactive experience. I asked the curators about this as ‘history’ given their views of dioramas. No-one seemed keen to own that part of the experience but as I said later, the chance to fire a crossbow (which I don’t think was available on the day) seemed more an authentic experience given that I believe you ‘really fired’ a bolt and the age of the weapon gave it greater kudos. It gave me a chance to rather wittily observe “Well, as the gun lobby says, it’s not crossbows that kill people, it's people who kill people”. I am not sure what success I would have had with the crossbow, but that joke had a 66 percent strike rate in terms of who laughed!
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