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I met my partners for the first time: Xinming Chen (Celia), Lucy, and Riya.

We had a preliminary discussion about the task of our group.

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We four introduced ourselves briefly and we talked about each other's undergraduate majors and areas of expertise face-to-face in class.

Xinming Chen (Celia): Media

Lucy: Art History

Riya: Art History and Designing

Fangyi Hu: Art Education and Fine Art

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we also created a WhatsApp group for our future collaboration and communication.

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We decided to choose the exhibits we were interested in from the Science Museum in the first week.

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Xinming Chen is interested in many toys on display at the Science Museum. She thinks there are a lot of possibilities in these objects. For example, the evolution of girls' toys, the evolution of dolls used for experimental medical research.

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I'm interested in the Exploring Space Gallery at the museum. The exhibits in this section come from many different countries, I really want to know how the exhibit represents different nation's contributions to space exploration, and how these representations might influence visitors' perceptions of scientific progress.

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Screenshot from Science Museum website (06/10/2024)

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https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/search/images/museum/science-museum/gallery/exploring-space-gallery

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We held regular team meetings to check and give feedback on the progress of the project in order to maintain team communication and collaboration.

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Regular Check in and Feedback (07/10/2024)

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Regular Check in and Feedback (07/10/2024)

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We discussed the specific time of the first offline group meeting on the WhatsApp.

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We discussed with Dr. Robert Knifton which of our respective abilities would be beneficial to the project, as well as initial ideas for the project.

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The pictures were taken in LUU (07/10/2024)

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We were all carefully sharing our selections.

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The pictures were taken in LUU (07/10/2024)

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The pictures were taken in LUU (07/10/2024)

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We went on to discuss in depth how toys represented the advancement of medicine, and at that time we tentatively settled on "the advancement of medicine through the advancement of toys" as our big idea.

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The photo was taken in Xi 'an, Shaanxi Province, China (08/06/2023)

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I said that I had done an exhibition planning for my and my classmates' art works when I was an undergraduate, so I have some experience in exhibition planning.

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The photo was taken in Xi 'an, Shaanxi Province, China (07/06/2023)

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I went to the British Museum this week.

We communicated on whatsapp and had a second offline meeting.

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We finally decided to change the Dolls theme we had chosen to the Astronomy direction I was initially interested in, because there are relatively many exhibits in the astronomy direction in the Science Museum, and everyone is more interested in it, while there are too few dolls exhibits.

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 Online & Offline Group Meeting (17/10/2024)

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 Online & Offline Group Meeting (17/10/2024)

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Lucy, Xinming and Riya had meetings offline and I communicated with them online at the same time.

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The pictures were taken in LUU (17/10/2024)

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We further discussed the commonality of astronomical works in the Science Museum, and found a representative person named Thomas Wright. Although many of his own theories were not quite correct, he made a great contribution to astronomical research at the time. We decided to study this man's exhibits more deeply.

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The pictures were taken in the British Museum (16/10/2024)

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I visited the British Museum to gain learning experience in curation, audience experience design, multimedia interaction and cultural heritage display.

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The pictures were taken in the British Museum (16/10/2024)

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I saw a lot of interpertive labels.

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The pictures were taken in the British Museum (16/10/2024)

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I learned many different forms of label.

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1. Overview

2. Project Goals

3. Requirements

4. Deliverables

5. Guidelines

(Includes detailed objectives formulated by our team based on the actual circumstances.)

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We made a draft this week.

Due to our time conflicts this week, we did not have offline meetings, and basically communicated with each other on WhatsApp.

Critical Issues Week 4 Trip: I visited the Walker Art Gallery and the Museum of Liverpool.

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This week, we had the second Mentoring Meeting, revised parts of the draft based on the discussion, and then submitted the draft that should have been sent to Rob last week. We also discussed using Padlet to ensure effective communication and the timely submission of our tasks.

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To better understand Thomas Wright, Xinming and I visited the Science Museum in London this week.

We also discussed the schedule for next week’s in-person meeting.

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This week, we held an in-person meeting, which was highly productive and significantly advanced the progress of our exhibition planning.

We completed the task outlined in Rob's email.

We created the initial visual structure of the exhibition on WordPress and added some of the text content.

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This week, we had our fourth Mentoring Meeting, during which we discussed various exhibition details with Rob.

We also started drafting the Event Notice Information and the News Story and Online Marketing.

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This week, we received Rob's feedback and comments on our Padlet and made revisions and edits to the exhibition content accordingly.

We continued refining the exhibition.

Submitted the Event Notice Information and the News Story and Online Marketing.

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Project presentations and Reflections.

This day marked the end of the course.

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This week, our group had the final mentoring meeting, completed the video production, finalized all text versions, added references for all exhibits, and uploaded all the information to WordPress, completing the final webpage for our online exhibition.

We created an outline for next week’s presentation and assigned each person a summary of the content they will present.

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'Big Idea': Lucy

Interpretative Strategy: Riya

Object List: Fangyi

Label Text (at least one): Xinming

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What is shown below is our initial preparation (including preliminary "a big idea"and preliminary object list), but not the final result.

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Big Idea 1st Draft:

‘An introductory display of the creations of English astronomer, and instrument maker Thomas Wright.

Wright demonstrated early understandings of the motions of the Sun, Earth, Moon and planets during the Enlightenment period of the mid-18th century.’

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Object List 1st Draft: The original version of my object list did not check for copyright issues.

(Are all the images under the Creative Commons License? )

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In this release I have initially screened the objects that can be used publicly and added links to each exhibit, easy for everyone to browse.

(But we later found that it was still wrong.)

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This week, we did not complete the task mentioned by Rob in his email as planned. We failed to send a full draft email to Rob on time because the Label Text and Interpretative Strategy sections were not submitted to the WhatsApp group as scheduled. As a result, we were unable to compile all the parts into a complete draft.

Therefore, in the following week, we discussed this issue and identified corresponding solutions (see Week 5 for details).

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Screenshot from WhatsApp (23/10/2024)

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Screenshot from WhatApp (26/10/2024)

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I learned about Creative Commons Zero (CC0) for the first time.

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Screenshot from Science Museum

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/

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Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the in-person Mentoring Meeting this week due to a fever. Instead, I emailed my thoughts and my Object List to Rob and shared them in the WhatsApp group.

I really like the topic I proposed about the "Age of Enlightenment." It turned out to be a valuable contribution to our exhibition, and I’m very happy about it.

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We focused on discussing the preliminary draft.

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This week, I have two reflections:

1. It is crucial to maintain timely communication and collaboration with other group members. If any issues arise, we should promptly consider solutions. For instance, when we failed to submit tasks on time last week, Lucy suggested using Padlet this week to facilitate better communication.

2. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and taking care of my health are also essential aspects of learning. It’s important to look after my body and establish a regular routine. I’ve been in the UK for over three months, but I’m still struggling to adapt to the different climate, which has caused me to fall ill repeatedly.

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Trip: Walker Art Gallery & Museum of Liverpool (23/10/2024)

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Trip: Walker Art Gallery & Museum of Liverpool (23/10/2024)

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I learned a lot about interactive exhibition methods and observed various types of "big ideas" as well as different styles of label text, which provided valuable insights for our online exhibition.

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The pictures were taken in the Walker Art Gallery (23/10/2024)

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The pictures were taken in the Walker Art Gallery (23/10/2024)

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The pictures were taken in the Walker Art Gallery (23/10/2024)

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The pictures were taken in the Walker Art Gallery (23/10/2024)

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Lucy suggested using Padlet to facilitate our communication.

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(This is not the final version.)

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"Step into the Enlightenment era, with astronomer and instrument maker, Thomas Wright. Combining contemporary understandings of science, art, philosophy and religion, Wright contributed pioneering ideas about the composition of our galaxy during the 18th century. Astronomy was often limited to the likes of the Ruling class, but Wright's conceptual approach to space helped to expand interest and understanding of the Milky Way among the general public. Today, we aim to introduce Thomas Wright's oeuvre to the new generation, rediscovering the wonders of the galaxy through the Enlightenment lens."

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Object List & Some Ideas---Fangyi (30/10/2024)

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Object List & Some Ideas---Fangyi (30/10/2024)

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My object list hasn’t changed, so I uploaded some other ideas. However, these ideas were ultimately not implemented.

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The photo was taken in Science Museum (04/11/2024)

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(Xinming and Fangyi)

We discovered that there were only two of Thomas Wright's works on display in the museum. In a way, this is a good thing, as it highlights the originality of our exhibition.

We also explored other astronomy-related exhibits that were not about Thomas Wright.

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The pictures were taken in the Science Museum (04/11/2024)

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The pictures were taken in the Science Museum (04/11/2024)

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The pictures were taken in the Science Museum (04/11/2024)

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The pictures were taken in the Science Museum (04/11/2024)

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After visiting the Science Museum and exploring the astronomy exhibits, I found myself reflecting on many thoughts and ideas.

Although I had already learned quite a bit about astronomy, seeing the exhibits in person was still profoundly impressive.

What stood out to me most after the visit was how humanity’s exploration of astronomy has been a long and steady journey—marked by mistakes, certainly, but with each small discovery contributing to the advanced field of modern astronomy we know today.

As a visitor, the experience made me even more curious about the future of astronomical research. Inspired by these reflections, I truly hope that our online exhibition can evoke similarly profound thoughts and insights in our audience.

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The photo was taken in Starbucks (13/11/2024) 

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We discussed the "Final drafts of exhibition text" and the "Draft visual strategy for online interpretation."

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Since our "big idea" has already been finalized, we focused on several label texts and the Chinese translation of all the texts.

(for details, see this Padlet: https://padlet.com/wxhd8048/visual-strategy-for-online-interpretation-final-draft-exhibi-c11towu8dp8flv2q)

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Draft Visual Strategy for Online Interpretation

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Draft Visual Strategy for Online Interpretation

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We researched various approaches to visual strategy planning online, which provided us with some ideas.

During this meeting, we finalized the exhibition’s main color scheme, text font, selected exhibits, and images... (for details, see this Padlet: https://padlet.com/wxhd8048/visual-strategy-for-online-interpretation-final-draft-exhibi-c11towu8dp8flv2q)

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We finalized the selected exhibits.

I removed some items that were not strongly related to astronomy and removed exhibits that did not under the CC0.

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We assigned each of us the text-related tasks to complete this week.

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I translated some of the texts into Chinese during the meeting.

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We believe that incorporating multiple languages into the exhibition text can make the exhibition more open and inclusive while enhancing its educational and cultural value.

Therefore, based on the proportion of first languages among students in our program, we decided to design the exhibition with bilingual texts in English and Chinese.

The task of translating the English texts into Chinese has been assigned to me.

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https://padlet.com/wxhd8048/visual-strategy-for-online-interpretation-final-draft-exhibi-c11towu8dp8flv2q

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During the meeting, Riya proposed creating a 2D animation to introduce Thomas Wright (which was later not realized for unknown reasons).

Xinming suggested using the videos we recorded at the Science Museum to create a documentary (which was later rejected due to copyright issues).

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Lucy found the basic methods for working with WordPress.

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We each completed our assigned sections of the English text, and I then translated the text into Chinese.

(Only partial screenshots are uploaded here; the detailed text can be found in the previously mentioned Padlet link.)

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We discussed our ideas with Rob, and he provided feedback and suggestions on the Padlet we submitted last week, as well as the ideas we presented during the meeting.

(Lucy was unable to attend this meeting due to a knee injury.)

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During the meeting, Rob provided us with the following feedback and suggestions:

1. Label Texts: The texts are too lengthy and need to be condensed.

2. Video Content: Since we do not have permission to use real footage from the Science Museum, our documentary cannot use it as material. However, Rob suggested that we could film an introduction video on campus (we ultimately decided not to use this method as it didn’t align well with the content we wanted to convey).

3. Time Management: Allocate time wisely, as there are still many tasks to complete later, such as the presentation.

4. Progress Acknowledgement: Rob commended our progress, noting that the WordPress content is beginning to take shape.

5. Follow-up Comments: Rob will provide additional comments on Padlet to help us further improve our exhibition.

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Further revisions and additions were made to the exhibition texts.

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Further revisions and additions were made to the exhibition texts.

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Preliminary discussion on the "Event Notice Information Requirements" and the "News Story and Online Marketing Requirements".

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Preliminary discussion on the "Event Notice Information Requirements" and the "News Story and Online Marketing Requirements".

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The photos were taken by Riya.

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After the meeting, we each delved deeper into our respective responsibilities.

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This document was compiled by Lucy.

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This exhibition introduces the pioneering work of English astronomer and instrument maker, Thomas Wright, with a view to rediscover the wonders of the galaxy through the 18th century Enlightenment lens.

Enlightenment thinking uniquely combined ideas around science, art, philosophy and religion. A Cosmic Enlightenment explores Thomas Wright's enlightened approach to astronomy and how it advanced interest and understanding of the Milky Way amongst the 18th century general public.

Suitable for all audiences, the exhibition is fronted by an exciting 2D animation that introduces you to the curious world of Thomas Wright.

The exhibition has been curated by four MA students, with objects carefully selected from the Science Museum 's online collection under the Creative Commons Licence. All exhibition text includes both English and Chinese translations.

Visit the exhibition

A Cosmic Enlightenment is part of a wider series of online exhibitions curated by Art Gallery and Museum Studies and Arts Management and Heritage MA students from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, as part of an Interpretations course module.
Visit the online exhibition.
Image

Orrery with original winding handle made by Thomas Wright, Fleet Street, London, 1735-1740. Once belonged to Stephen Demainbray. King's College, London © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum. This image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence.

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A Cosmic Enlightenment: Thomas Wright's Lunar Legacy

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This exhibition introduces the pioneering work of English astronomer and instrument maker, Thomas Wright, with a view to rediscover the wonders of the galaxy through the 18th century Enlightenment lens. Enlightenment thinking uniquely combined ideas around science, art, philosophy and religion.