A commitment to contemporary curatorial trends has led Auckland Museum to open two new collection-based decorative arts galleries. The Encounter Gallery is dedicated to New Zealand decorative arts and design, while the Landmarks Gallery explores international developments in design. Interactive workstations in both new galleries explore the themes of the exhibits and enable visitors to learn about the significant works on display. The public can also learn about the Museum's decorative arts collection online through MUSE, a web-based interface and search engine.
Atlantech's MUSE system enabled Museum staff to present their decorative arts records in two different ways. In the galleries, a graphical interface allows visitors to explore curatorial records through a decorative arts-themed interface, while website users can access decorative arts records through an online search engine. This flexibility was made possible by MUSE's template-based design, which allows identical records to be displayed differently in each interface.
The workstations in the Encounter and Landmarks galleries offer thematic overviews of the works on display. The interfaces in both galleries have a similar look and feel, enabling visitors to draw connections between international decorative arts and New Zealand's own decorative arts. A list of themes is presented alongside images of significant works in the gallery. Museum staff created exciting themes like ‘The New Oceania' and ‘Of Charm and Resource', rather than using curatorial categories to arrange the individual works. This was made possible by the flexibility of the MUSE system, which allows records spanning multiple curatorial areas to be displayed together.
Visitors select a theme in order to view an introduction to the theme. Visitors can then explore records of some of the key works in the gallery. The records include a range of details and hi-res images. By reading about the conceptual links between significant works, visitors can engage with the exhibits and learn about important developments in the decorative arts.
Visitors to both galleries can search records of the works on display using MUSE's search engine. Both basic and advanced searches are available. Visitors can search records using a variety of categories, including media, keywords, name, period, and type of object. Useful search tips help visitors to get the best results from searches, and results can be organised by various categories for ease of browsing.
The MUSE search engine also allows visitors to the Museum's website to search for works of decorative art online. The search engine functionality is the same as in the galleries, but the search engine uses the generic Museum website interface rather than the decorative arts-themed interface featured in Encounter and Landmarks.
Encounter and Landmarks have already gathered high praise from art gallery and museum curators within New Zealand and abroad. Atlantech's software solutions have helped to make the new decorative arts galleries an exciting and interactive experience, both for visitors to the Museum and the online public.