KIX Museum Exhibition 2013 Review

KIX stands for Knowledge Integration Museum Exhibition. It’s a yearly project culminating in an exhibition. To learn more about the exhibition course or to check out last years museum review click here. This year, there were 4 exhibitions and a Meta exhibit (a showcase of behind the scenes work and information on the exhibition course)

1. Value: Beyond the dollar
2. Satellite in the Shed
3. Exploring the Canadian Artic
4. I Spy

1. Value: Beyond the dollar

The purpose of this exhibit is to get the visitors to think about the value of items as something more than money. This is done by looking at emerging economic practices,  thinking about ideas as currency, looking at the value of free inspiration and knowledge such as TED talks, MIT open courseware and lastly, how we can take part in collaborative consumption on services such as cars ( zipcar), housing (airbnb), cycle (FreeCycle).

I really enjoyed using the iPad drawing app to learn about creative commons and its usage, I felt this was a great way to learn. I will be sure to Google more information on the collaborative consumption. Visually, I thought posing the questions of uses of trees as a blackboard was a good idea but, I was a bit confused to the purpose of the visually pleasing Keystone XL pipeline .

2. DIY

 

The DIY( Do it Yourself) exhibition looked at how DIY is affecting our resilience and our world by using simple homemade projects such as the makeshift stationary cycle , simple ways to exercise by everyday objects around you( I am a huge fan of this because, I am currently working out from my home and I truly think you only need 2 things to get fit – your willpower and gravity), making your own kitchenware , solar usb charger and make your own controllers .

I was very impressed with the aesthetics and the user experience and the variety of artifacts on display. The DIY group not only talked about DIY but, actually went out and built some amazing concepts and artifacts to show to the users that it is simple enough that more people can do it. Also, I really loved their use of the DIY timeline feature which was presented close towards the end of the exhibition.

3. Exploring the Canadian Artic

This exhibition takes its visitors back in time to join a historic arctic expedition and relive the trials and triumphs of its explorers. Though the exhibition started out with a lot of monotone color walls and signage, I was pleasantly surprised by its sheer amount of awesome artifacts that the group had acquired for its exhibition. Items such as the old chest, the bear skin , really old sign posts all made me feel like I was part of a film set.

Also, this exhibit was the only one that made the activity seem like a choice by using its signpost to divide the experience. By taking the left route, its visitors would have experienced the Alaskan journey and by taking the right, visitors would have experienced the Karluk journey. Another thing, the team did very well was to use the green color stickers for entrance and the red color tape to denote its entrance and exit.

 

4. I spy

The I Spy exhibit explored the possibilities of identifying possible security threats around us, when we should take action and when we should hand it to the proper authorities and in general how to keep our surroundings safe. The exhibit went a bit further and explored how average citizens can become citizen spies and reveal possible security threats in our everyday life.

I was impressed with this exhibit use of typography, use of mannequins and the timeline feature as it helped me visualize easily. When I came to this slide asking have you spotted the security threats, I immediately stopped and started looking around nervously. The interrogation room was actually very eerie looking and made me realize how the real life interrogation would feel.

 

Closing thoughts and overall impressions

The exhibitions this year have really taken it to the next level in terms of user engagement, learning outcomes and just pure visual aesthetics. For the first time, I had the feeling that I was actually someplace else while being part of the Arctic exhibition, the interrogation room feeling in the citizen spy exhibit, the iPad engagement app to learn about creative commons and the various DIY activities especially using everyday objects to create an exercise for yourself was very well done. Great job to the team and everybody who made this exhibition awesome! You have definitely upped the standards yet again.

I would like to thank Robert, Peter, Jesse and Ali for their valuable inputs.