Up and Coming Pop-up Exhibit

By Al Preston

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            Hovering on the horizon of this museum, is its first physical world exhibit. We are aiming to have multiple pop-up exhibits that meld the digital and physical to make Pittsburgh’s queer history far more accessible that we could have in one form or another.

            As hinted, the oral histories this museum has collected will come together to ask a very particular question (this time): What is queer Pittsburgh? Where, who, and why? The title of this exhibit will be: Quiet Pittsburgh.

            You may have seen sneak peaks of the exhibit through talks I have given and that have been posted to the website, but those are only a fraction of the oral history that will be presented. There’s also a lot to consider when it comes to the physical design of the pop-up itself. So, in this blog, I will show some of the thought process that has gone into this first pop-up. If you want to see the finished result, keep an eye out on our socials (Instagram, Facebook). You may find us at an event or two!

For now, here’s a small peak into our thought process (featuring some very crude drawings)!

            There are a few things to consider when designing this exhibit. It has to be able to go up and come down easily and quickly, people are going to be interacting with it, the major piece of history will be audio of people speaking, and we are working with a limited budget. I’ll break this down into these pieces. Keep in mind that these are just general ideas. The exhibit might look a little different when it finally comes to life.

            First thing first, what are the materials we’ll be using? As stated, we want this pop-up to be easy to assemble and disassemble. At the moment, we’re aiming to use posterboard (you know, that foam board you had to use for science class?) and easels for additional information to be presented. This information would supplement the main attraction of the exhibit, the oral histories. They would provide context for the speakers and the general history of Pittsburgh and gay rights.

            Poster board is light and easy to move, so are display easels, so we could easily set up the posters. However, we will need some technology in order to present the oral histories, such as speakers, and power for those things as well as a computer to run the actual audio-visual element of the project. The speakers will need something more stable than an easel to rest on. A folding table or two will provide stability and the ability for visitors to the exhibit to provide feedback or take pamphlets.

            Now that we know what we have to work with, how do we design it so it’s easy for people to interact with? The speakers will allow everyone to hear the oral histories. Initially, we wanted to include a visual element to the exhibit in the form of a video. However, we’re not sure that will be possible so replace the word ‘monitor’ with ‘speaker’ or ‘computer’ for the coming drawings.

            As we’re hoping there will be quite a few people trying to view this exhibit all at once, we don’t want everything to be in tight together. It will always be an issue we will face, but there are a few things we can do to lessen the problem. There are three pieces of information that are needed for this exhibit; information about the narrators, a national timeline, and Pittsburgh’s general timeline.

            The timelines can be positioned around the tables in order and without bunching everyone up. The information about the narrators will be all around the monitor because that information is only within context around the oral histories. You can see a general idea of what this will look like from the top down here:

            That big open space is where people can linger and move around the space and those stop sign shapes with an ‘S’ in them are the speakers. This is also not fully to scale. Every location will be a little different with different amounts of space, but this is about the general spacing. Extra space on the tables will have advertisements for the museum, sign-up sheets, and comment cards for visitor opinions on the exhibit.

            The posters are another matter. They’re going to be big and have, hopefully, plenty of information. Timelines will, of course, have a timeline on them, connecting them. However, the narrator panels will talk about who is speaking throughout the audio-visual and why they were interviewed, their role in Pittsburgh’s history, or future.

            Here’s a general idea of how these different kinds of panels might look like:

            Timeline panel:

            Biography Pannel:

            The audio component of this exhibit is a major component of all of this. The exhibit has little meaning without it, however there are particular issues that audio elements of an exhibit present beside the obvious physical issues like power and technology. Everyone has to be able to hear the audio and be at a pace that everyone, or at least the majority of the visitors, can follow.

            Hopefully, especially with mostly outdoor venues, the speakers will put out the oral histories at an understandable tone, which is why they are spread out amongst the exhibit to give the best coverage possible. There will also need to be a transcript ready and available for those who may have a hard time hearing.

            Finally, we run into the budget. We are incredibly small and don’t have a lot of money. However! We aren’t without options. Grants from organizations and the generous help of patrons allow us to make this exhibit, either in this described form or any kind of form, possible. I hope all of you are as excited as we are for this exhibit.

            It’s the first of hopefully many exhibits of the museum. Keep checking in on us as we march toward its debut!