Tall Tales & Deadly Drawings: Stories for Boys & Girls at the National Library
Following on the success of Discover Lifelines, Tandem was again contracted by the Library to design and deliver a temporary exhibition showcasing Irish children’s literature and illustration in the Library’s foyer. Though familiar with this space, we wanted to explore other configurations that would allow us to create an exhibition with a dramatically different look and feel.
Titled Tall Tales and Deadly Drawings, the exhibition's subject matter allowed us to take a more playful approach to its design. As we were also responsible for researching and writing the exhibition, our interpretive process was a holistic one that allowed the graphic style and storyline to evolve in tandem.
An enchanted tree explores the recurring theme of ‘the forest’ in children’s literature, while a giant bookshelf features a child-only space called ‘The Reading Hole’ in which we placed a bean bag and a series of books.
As well as fostering a love of reading, one of the exhibition’s key objectives was to celebrate the act of storytelling and writing. To this end, we built a freestanding ‘Inspiration Station’ at which visitors (of all ages!) could take inspiration from quotes by Irish children’s writers and write a story of their own with the help of an inspirational ‘story cubes’ game. Visitors could then share their stories in the ‘Open Book’ which retained outreach elements from the Discover Lifelines exhibition.
We extended the exhibition’s playfulness and theme of discovery to other areas of the Library through the occasional placement of ‘deadly drawings’ from Irish children’s books throughout the Library’s public spaces including the toilets and coffee shop. This promoted the exhibition to regular Library users and encouraged Tall Tales visitors to linger and explore other parts of the building.
Scope
Content Mapping,
Research & Scripting
Image Research,
Cataloguing & Selection
Interpretive Design &
Consultation
Reporting to Stakeholders
& Presenting to Project
Steering Group
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