• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ransom Center Magazine

  • Sections
    • Art
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts
  • Archive
  • Print Edition

passport project

Two interactive activities added to The World at War: 1914-1918

July 1, 2014 - Sarah Strohl

The passport guide is available at the visitors desk. Photo by Lisa Pulsifer.

Two new interactive activities—an audio tour and a passport project—are now available for visitors to the exhibition The World at War, 1914–1918.

Daniel Carter, a PhD student in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin who researches how people interact with cultural objects, facilitated the pilot project.

“I spent some time in the gallery watching people move through The World at War exhibition,” said Carter. “I became interested in thinking about other kinds of interactions that might happen in that space.”

Carter reached out to designer Brent Dixon and local theater group Paper Chairs to ask them to produce something for visitors in the gallery. In response, Dixon created the passport project, and Paper Chairs recorded an audio tour for the exhibition.

Visitors can receive a passport booklet with a map to guide them through the exhibition and to illustrate the larger story of how each country was affected by the war. Within each country’s section of the exhibition, visitors will find a reproduction of a major artifact—for example, French poet and soldier Roger Allard’s description of conditions at the frontline. The passport project, reminiscent of a scavenger hunt, provides visitors context with another way of engaging with the exhibition.

“Our hope is for people to approach each section of the exhibition with a slightly richer context,” said Dixon.

The Paper Chairs audio tour brings textual material in the exhibition to life so that it can be experienced on a personal level. Kelli Bland of Paper Chairs chose 15 letters and poems in the exhibition and recruited talent from her theater community to read them aloud. Rather than mimicking the dialects and accents of the writers, the actors instead aimed to capture the emotion of the letters and poems and to give a human voice to the documents so that visitors could connect with the material.

“We, as a society, are separated from the experience of war,” Bland said. “I am hoping that our little guide will support the message I received from the exhibition: war is consuming, thrilling, and terrible. It changes the world and all of the people in it.”

The current exhibition, including Dixon’s passport project and the Paper Chairs audio tour, is on view through August 3. The audio guide and passport are available at the visitor desk during regular gallery hours.

Filed Under: Exhibitions + Events, Theatre + Performing Arts Tagged With: audio tour, Brent Dixon, Daniel Carter, exhibition, Kelli Bland, Paper Chairs, passport project, The World at War 1914-1918

Primary Sidebar

Archive

Tags

acquisition Alice's Adventures in Wonderland archive archives Art Books Cataloging Conservation Council on Library and Information Resources David Foster Wallace David O. Selznick digitization exhibition Exhibitions Fellows Find Fellowships Film Frank Reaugh Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive Gone with the Wind I have seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Lewis Carroll literature Magnum Photos Manuscripts Meet the Staff Nobel Prize Norman Bel Geddes Norman Mailer Performing Arts Photography poetry preservation Publishing Research Robert De Niro Shakespeare theater The King James Bible: Its History and Influence The Making of Gone With The Wind Undergraduate What is Research? World War I

Recent Posts

  • Finding Henry Street: the Broadway Revival of Funny Girl and New York City Dramaturgy
  • Summer Intern: Malachi McMahon
  • Collaborating To Conserve
  • Michael Gilmore’s Life in Objects
  • Archive of Poet James Fenton Acquired

Before Footer

Sign up for eNews

Our monthly newsletter highlights news, exhibitions, and programs.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

About

Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

Copyright © 2023 Harry Ransom Center

Web Accessibility · Web Privacy