Blog

July 20, 2016

74,746 words and counting…

74, 746. The number of words in this exhibition.

Over the past three weeks our extraordinary and indefatigable copy editor, Marie-Louise Bethune and I have poured over these 74,746 words, searching for inconsistencies, stylistic problems and yes, even after all this time, mistakes!

Writing text for an exhibition is unlike any other writing. Imagine trying to explain something as complex as Operation Barbarossa, the single largest military invasion in history, in 180 words! Daunting doesn’t quite do it justice. Then imagine trying to connect this text to images, objects, testimony and the space itself, producing a coherent textual, but also visual, spatial and ultimately sensory experience for the visitor.

In an exhibition of this size and complexity, no single person has the expertise to write the variety of texts needed. Our Resident Historian Konrad Kwiet was responsible for the historical narrative and remains the final word on the tiny points of historical detail and our ‘fact checker’ extraordinaire. Curator Ros Sugarman provided the base text for the objects, Collections Curator Shannon Maguire for the images, Researcher Sarah Haid for the concentration camp maps interactive and Researcher Antares Wells and Education Officer Marie Bonardelli for the Voices app.

Professor Konrad Kwiet and Roslyn Sugarman doing final checks

My job was to develop and write the conceptual framing texts that would underpin and drive the overall narrative. I then proceeded to flesh out and refine all of the texts supplied by the team, paring them down to fit our Designer and Creative Director Jisuk Han’s exacting word counts. Jisuk and I spent countless hours in front of texts and visuals, pulling sections apart and piecing them together again, ensuring that the connections between all the exhibition media worked as a coherent whole. I have actually lost count of the number of drafts we have laboured over but with each one the narrative becomes tighter and tighter, the writing sharper and hence more effective. When I am moved by a 30-word object label I know my job is done.

74, 746 words. No one will read all of them and nor should they. But each one must be the right one; wisely chosen and perfectly placed. Telling this complex, harrowing and vitally important story in the most direct and effective language possible is the most difficult writing project I have yet undertaken. Equally, it has been the most rewarding.

Author: Avril Alba, Project Director