More than 150 people are involved in putting together the National Museum of Australia’s next exhibition, Pompeii.
The exclusive collaboration between the Archaeological Park of Pompeii in Italy, the Grand Palais in France and the NMA, will see the exhibition on show in the southern hemisphere for the first time.
The installation at NMA began in September.
Thousands of people were killed in Pompeii and Herculaneum in southern Italy when Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano, erupted on 24 August 79AD.
NMA exhibition program coordinator Dave Flanagansaid exhibitions require a small town of people over the years of development.
“At the moment, more than 150 people, including the museum team, have or are working on this project,” Mr Flanagan said.
“The collaborative environment and the opportunity to work with skilled professionals, both locally and internationally, is what makes working at the NMA on projects like Pompeii so fascinating.”
He said the creative process of designing and making these environments, alongside ensuring both the objects and visitors were safe – and that visitors felt comfortable and excited – became the “nuts and bolts of building and commissioning” an exhibition.
Mr Flangan said it also looked at the logistics when objects were brought in from Australia or around the world, including packing, crating, freight, and bringing couriers and installers to the museum.
“Finally, visitors come through the door, and it is exciting to watch them move through the exhibition – reading everything, pointing with awe at the objects, taking images of everything and sharing with their friends and family,” he said.
“They have questions and want to share their experiences and observations of the exhibition with us, which is gold. This makes it all worthwhile.”
A six-metre-tall wall was built to recreate the eruption of Mt Vesuvius to fully immerse visitors in the volcano’s devastating eruption.
The exhibition also features four domus (ancient Roman houses) recreated to house and display some of the 90 objects hand-selected from the archaeological site at Pompeii to recreate everyday life in the ancient city.
There are also 25 large-scale projections that have been installed to recreate scenes of everyday life in the ancient city; it will also project the visitors’ shadows onto walls to make them an integral part of life in Pompeii.
The exhibition will also feature an ancient Roman Corso (main street) running down the middle to take visitors on a journey through the ancient city and active archaeological site.
NMA exhibition projects and Interpretation manager Vicki Northey said most temporary exhibitions took about two to five years of development to be displayed in the museum, sometimes in collaboration with institutions in New Zealand.
She said developing exhibitions was a process of defining the stories to be told, selecting the objects and content to tell these stories, and then looking at how they could be presented in a three-dimensional space.
Pompeii runs at the NMA from 13 December 2024 to 4 May 2025. For more information on the exhibition and to book tickets visit nma.gov.au.
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