Exhibition Design Services Photographic Private Art Collection

Following the enormous success of the Thomas Child’s Photographic Exhibition at the China Exchange 12 months earlier.

The New York based collector & exhibition curator had the vision to produce a new exhibition based on the works of William Saunders.

Once again our studios were asked to provide exhibition design services including exhibition and lighting design on this prestigious rare photographic exhibition project.

A British born photographer working in Shanghai, William Saunders produced mainly portraits but also recorded local events and scenery around the 1870s. The exhibition displayed 33 images from this photographic private art collection of which 27 had been hand-coloured producing incredible fine detailed photographic images.

With the importance of these rare photographic images of everyday Chinese life, Asian Art in London wanted to hold their official VIP opening at the China Exchange to coincide with the exhibition opening.
Asian Art in London has grown over the last 20 years to bring together the world’s top dealers, major auction houses and museums for events of the finest Asian art. This provided the art collector with the perfect opportunity to present to VIP guests from the art world these important and rare historical photographic images.   

With all these things in mind, the exhibition curator wanted this time to add a 3-dimensional element to the display. This display element would create something special to assist visitors to better understand the environment in which these images would have been created, using Collodion wet plate cameras of the time.

The exhibition curator had the idea to recreate a Victorian photographic studio similar in type to those being used by photographers around that period. However, at the suggestion of our exhibition designer, it was decided not to produce an exact period replica of a photographic studio but something more of an art installation. By adopting this design approach it would improve continuity and cohesiveness with the rest of the photographic exhibition layout.
      
Various locations within the exhibition space were tested along with varying designs for the studio, until the final version seen in these images was agreed upon.

China Exchange is equipped with only ambient uplighters and the lack of any track or directional spotlighting is not ideal for art installations or exhibitions. So a temporary 12 volt tensioned wired lighting system was installed using 3000K, LED lamps and fittings. Various light filters were added to the lamps to change beam angle and intensity, whilst light levels (Lux) were measured and adjusted to agreed tolerances.

The photographic studio & exhibition were a great success, with a noticeable increase in daily visitor numbers from the previous year’s exhibition.

We were delighted to read the many compliments scribbled into the visitor’s book by both the general public guests and scholars alike.

Related exhibition - Thomas Childs Photographic Exhibition

Click on the thumbnail images on the righthand side of the screen or related links below.

back to news