Interview with Darren Barnes - Exhibitions Director

BS: yeah, no, that's ok. ((laughter)).You might think this is categorising things again but cause you mentioned two different kinds of spaces the hub and the hall.

DB: yes.

BS: Can you just say a little bit about the differences between them.

DB: Well, as I said when we first started Techniquest we didn't have a lot of money for development. Through the, the work that's been done in order to secure the grant we've actually had more money been made, actually been made available for us to, to cBrett on and do things that are new on the exhibition floor. The exhibition in itself is getting tired it always has the first exhibit that we've ever created so, that one's getting old and we're producing other exhibits for other people. The way that we're using the hub is to, try and, try and create a space where the exhibits changed often. Where if a visitor comes to Techniquest they can see that it's changed. We, tend to tackle things that are perhaps, a bit more difficult. Genetics was a particularly difficult set of exhibits. Electricity, is easier but again it's the message thing. But, you do need to have a message at some point. You, you need to ((laughs)) tag all this around something so having a message of "Electricity is cool". The - the exhibits that are on the exhibition floor, tend to be, more, have more depth. They have - a lot more to them. The exhibits that we have in the hub tend to be a lot, a lot more simple. They tend not to have, they maybe have more content in inverted commas, more behind them. But quite often at the moment we're not actually - pushing what you can do with an interactive within the hub. We are trying to do a lot more in the hub. I am currently struggling with that because it actually means a lot more - time, than we have available - to - give to it. It was a way of getting funding - because we say that it's linking education and the exhibition, which I think is right. It's a very good vehicle for actually getting a number of staff involved with prototyping and designing exhibits very, very quickly. It's very cost-effective because, you want to see - It takes a long time to, to decide how an exhibit's going to look, how someone's hopefully going to use it and then put it straight on the exhibition floor. By prototyping and improving and changing the exhibits we, which we can in the hub which effectively are sort of small table-top versions, we can do them much more quickly than we would normally. We are exposing - the people that are involved with that - to that, which is good. And, we, we are sort of, completing the loop, evaluating them afterwards with, a view I would hope to move, exhibits which are created in the hub to actually final exhibits that are in the exhibition.

So, by, it's - it's not a prototype. It would be lovely to say every single exhibit we put in the hub is absolutely fine it works perfectly first time. I almost, in some ways it's almost a prototype, environment where we do create new content we do create new exhibits which have got a value. But we can take many of the ideas a lot further by taking the next leap. I would love into the, into the exhibits. Hub activities are very, very good - that we can then move it round our other franchises to, to refresh them. The only reason I've got the money to be able to do it, is that it allows us to refresh what's happening.

And it does, from an organisational point of view, improve links between the workshop and education. So, so, I've said, what did I say at the beginning "the visit's the most important thing?" From trying to get the organisation to work - in the way I'd like it to work it - it's a very good - vehicle for doing that. The exhibits themselves are - almost exhibits - some could say some of them are activities rather than exhibits. So it's a distinction, "what actually is a hands-on exhibit?" I don't think many of them have, as multilayered approach as I would like in say a - a free-standing exhibit. But to get that tick is an awful lot of work. And, ultimately those sort of exhibits don't fit in to the environment that we're trying to create within the hub which is, the message is, you know we're trying to put messages across we're trying to say "this is dangerous." "This is how electrons movee which.

Trying to do those things, that's really hard. I mean that is just really, really hard. With the hub the thing we're not doing currently is staffing it enough. And something that we need to do is to have more staff in there as explainers. We have them on the exhibition floor. They do a great job. But - some of the exhibits in the hub actually have what could be said, to have some of the features that actually make it more accessible for an explainer to jump in, and, guide the experience, than, maybe you can with a free-standing exhibit. And it's the kind of - if we we're creating exhibits they're far more, in some ways demo kit - than our other exhibits. But it's, it's shades of grey, it's not they are demo kit. But, that's how I think about them in my mind, anyway.