Manitoba Museum Prairies Gallery
As part of the exhibit design team at AldrichPears Associates, I worked for three full years on The Manitoba Museum capital renewal project, "Bringing Our Stories Forward".
I designed the graphics for three permanent exhibit galleries: Welcome, Prairies, and Winnipeg.
I designed the graphics for three permanent exhibit galleries: Welcome, Prairies, and Winnipeg.
The Prairies gallery (opened 2021) interpreted the intertwined natural and human stories of the prairie. The prairie is a place of openness and a land in motion. It is a defining landscape of Manitoba, and the stage where many of the province’s most important stories played out. The plants, animals, and fungi of the prairies, superbly adapted to the unique challenges of their environment, are showcased in the new Prairies Gallery. A deep and layered view of history through geological time explores human connections to the land across thousands of years, with an eye to the future.
Immersive and digital experiences engage visitors throughout. Visitors watch and listen to a flurry of birds at Whitewater Lake; examine layers of history in an eroding riverbank; and walk into an old-fashioned schoolhouse. Video interactives tell stories of real places in Manitoba, and feature people who live and work in the region. The story of Manitoba’s endangered species and historical injustices towards Indigenous peoples is a call to action.
The Prairies gallery graphic program included over 500 graphics! One of the exciting graphic challenges was creating a large number of content maps. These varied from simple infographics to large-scale custom maps created from primary data. Some of them were built based on information from numerous resources, with contributions from many of the Manitoba Museum curators.
All of the graphics have been designed to meet guidelines for accessibility, including language. All exhibits are completely bilingual (French and English). Some are completely trilingual, with the addition of Cree or Anishinaabemowin.
It has been a pleasure to work with the Museum curators on this world-class project!
All images: © Manitoba Museum / Ian McCausland
The gallery features large-scale custom maps created from primary data. This one was built from numerous sources with contributions from all seven curators.
