At the beginning of my master’s project, the idea was to create a route in the canton of Neuchâtel to present the different places linked to the Neuchâtel Observatory, in addition to the exhibition in the Hirsch Pavilion.
This multi-site exhibition could be developed later, but I had to refocus my work on the heart of the project and the exhibition, the Hirsch Pavilion with its 9 rooms and 2 floors.
Below you can review the initial idea which is on standby at the moment.
Concept of multi-site exhibition
The concept is to develop a non-linear and multi-site exhibition, inspired by the Observatory’s activities, in order to update the classic museographic vision and to propose a new form of storytelling.
The exhibition will offer visitors stories related to the institution in different spaces and times, that have a particular connection to its past. The Observatory will serve as a guideline, inviting the visitor to question in a poetic or playful way our relationship to time, its value, etc.
Exhibition spaces
The heart of the exhibition will be the Hirsch Pavilion (name of the first director, Adolphe Hirsch) and the Observatory Park. Here are some of the topics that will be treated during the visit:
- Time Manufacture: determination, preservation and distribution of time, development of apparatus
- Craftsmen of Time: chronometry, competition
- Time Design: astronomy
- Jumping Time: seismology
- Atmospheric Time: meteorology
- Actors of Time: employees with their stories
- Time Scale: timeline of the Observatory’s history
- Time in Progress: present the latest research and discoveries
Equally, the exhibition will be displayed in different locations in the region, to show visitors other heritage elements related to the Observatory. Therefore, they will be able to discover the calibration sights of the meridian telescope in Chaumont and Portalban, the mountain astronomical station, the buildings of the companies that supplied the precision clocks to the Observatory (Hipp, Perret…), the places where time was distributed to society (the cities of the region, etc), the house of the Nobel Prize in Physics Charles Edouard Guillaume, inventor of the invar, an alloy that revolutionized metrology, etc. An interactive and/or paper map will allow the visitor to find the sites; on each site, the visitor will find a display or panel with information and a QR-Code to access more online content.
Storytelling
My idea is to propose a two-level storytelling, that dialoguing with the vistor to stimulate reflection.
First level will be based on the Observatory’s 150-year history, with content on its various activities and research tasks. Instruments, archive images, videos will be presented at this stage.
Second level will be related to the topic of time and its measurement in a broader sense. It will introduce questions, concepts or creations that scientists, philosophers, artists have develo-ped. For example, visitors will be able to see the first image of a black hole, photographed by several telescopes synchronized by atomic clocks, the image of Salvador Dalì’s soft watches to show that time may only be an illusion or the cover of the book “In Search of Lost Time”, a novel by the writter Marcel Proust, that describes how taste can take us back in time.
Scenography
The scenography will be composed of objects, texts and photo panels, sound and video archives, animations to explain instruments, interactive elements accessible with mobile (QR-Code), website and/or mobile application, etc.