Creative Exhibition Design

Creative Exhibition Design

Project Details

Date
21. May 2021
Client
Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum
Location
Am Bergbaumuseum 28
44791 Bochum
Germany

Project Description

The Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum (DBM), founded in 1930, preserves, researches and communicates the material heritage of mining. It is the largest mining museum in the world and, with around 365,700 visitors per year (2012), one of the most visited museums in Germany. Located in the heart of the Ruhr region, it was not created from the remains of a former colliery, as some visitors mistakenly assume, but was built from the outset as an exhibition mine and museum. It was not until 1973 that it received its landmark, the double trestle winding tower, from the disused “Germania” mine. The DBM has been recognised as a research museum since 1977 and its cooperation with leading partners such as the Smithsonian Institution underlines its importance in international research and education.

The special exhibition “Death by Salt – An Archaeological Investigation in Persia”, opening on 7 April 2021, has been created in collaboration with the Saltmen and Archaeological Museum Zanjan and the National Museum Tehran. The exhibition focuses on the unique people from Iran preserved in salt, as well as their work, life and fate some 2,400 years ago. Further information can be found in the digital exhibition: https://death-by-salt.com

In two areas, the exhibition is illustrated by graphic light projections, which were created with the help of Derksen, the Gelsenkirchen specialist for projection technology. In the entrance area, the exhibition logo and the larger-than-life silhouette of an early historical miner are projected to draw visitors’ attention to the entrance. In the exhibition space on the first floor, a series of exhibits and information panels are displayed, linked to locations on an overview map of Iran. The overview map is presented by a horizontal backlit display from which projected light lines with numbering run across the floor to the correlating stations of the exhibition. This creates a clear allocation and orientation for the visitors in the room. The implementation with the medium of light makes this orientation system a special visual experience. On the back wall of the exhibition space, the theme is projected onto the wall in modern typography in three languages. The use of colour supports the differentiation of the languages.

A total of seven PHOS 85 LT projectors are used in the project, which are flexibly installed in tracks on the ceiling. The numbered light lines are composed of four individual projections, which were meticulously measured and straightened in perspective to achieve the present result. A rearrangement of the objects in the room and a change in the routing were successfully addressed by subsequent adjustments.

Planning of the projections:
Karina Schwunk, Manfred Linden (DBM)

Implementation:
Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum,
Derksen Lichttechnik GmbH

Projection hardware entrance area:
2 x PHOS 85 LT with wide-angle lens 45 mm

Projection hardware exhibition:
5 x PHOS 85 LT with wide-angle lens 45 mm

Photos:
Markus Lück, Derksen Lichttechnik GmbH