A workshop on the theme of Fantasy Legal Exhibitions was held on 18 and 19 July of 2023, organised Victoria Barnes and Amanda Perry-Kessaris and funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association and Kent Law School.
The aim of the event was to explore exhibition as an actual-potential legal research practice. We chose the word ‘fantasy’ for two reasons. First, we wanted to signal that we hoped to push participants to think beyond what might initially appear possible—to work, at least provisionally, beyond everyday constraints of resources and our imagination. Second, we wanted to draw attention to the potential of exhibitions to conjure things—timelines, conjunctions, intersections, experiences—that are not accessible in the wider world, and that might prove generative for legal research(ers).
We planned the event with reference to the techniques and knowledge from experience design. For example, we paid close attention to the emotional, intellectual and behavioural dimensions of the participant experience before, during and after the core event. We used ‘briefs’—a series of carefully specified tasks—not only for the instrumental purpose of encouraging participants to make progress towards their fantasy exhibition, but also a device to generate a coherent narrative for the event.
Before
The first brief was embedded in an atypical Call for Participation. Applicants were invited to respond to three prompts which were designed to surface something of their experiences and ambitions around exhibition.
Once selected, participants were asked to complete a set of pre-event activities—such as a virtual tour of Rule of Law at the British Museum, and reading literature exploring themes from curation, archiving, visual culture and design.
During
The core Workshop was held across five central London locations. In each location, participants were invited to engage with artefacts, spaces, concepts, curatorial and archival practices, and/or experts, through the device of one or more briefs.
For example, at the crowded British Museum, participants were asked to choose one room on which to focus as an ‘exhibition’, and to explore it spatially using mapping and photography; and to consider to what the exhibition was drawing attention, what might be missing or erased, uncomfortable or unclear.
In the quiet of the Postal Museum, they were invited to handle items from the archive, and asked, among other things, to caption one item for a lay visitor, for a legal practitioner, and for a legal academic.
Then, outside among the shrubs and trees of Spa Fields playground, participants were asked to focus on one piece of play equipment and to consider how they might adapt it to create an interactive or experiential component in their Fantasy Legal Exhibition.
At Middle Temple, participants were invited to consider the role of conservation and exhibition, especially in when a collection forms part of the everyday fabric of an organisation.
Finally, in the calm of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS), participants identified an item that it would be desirable, but impossible to include in their Fantasy Legal Exhibition—because, for example, it never existed, or no longer exists; then made a clay model of it to exhibit alongside those of other participants. And they mapped the journey, and accompanying sensations, emotions, and insights, that they anticipate for visitors to their Fantasy Legal Exhibition.
After
Participants completed four post-Workshop briefs.
- A statement reflecting on the Workshop experience, including insights gained, enjoyments had, and agonies sustained (see our SLSA Blog post for extracts); and
- A prototype of their Fantasy Legal Exhibition in the form of five slides with accompanying narration notes.
- Feedback on the prototype of a peer.
- Narrated video of revised prototype exhibition (see below).
Acknowledgments
This event would not have been possible without the generous engagement of Susannah Coster, Archivist at The Postal Museum, and Barnaby Bryan, Archivist at Middle Temple; and of our event participants.
Suggested reading
Victoria Barnes and Lucy Newton (2022), ‘Corporate identity, company law and currency: a survey of community images on English bank notes’ 17-1 Management & Organizational History 43.
John Berger (1972) Ways of Seeing. BBC and Penguin, Chapter 5.
Adrian George (2015) ‘Putting a show together’ in The Curator’s Handbook. Thames Hudson, Chapter 7.
Hans Ulrich Obrist (2014) Curating, exhibiting and the Gesamtkunstwerk’ in Ways of Curating. Penguin, pp 22-35.
Leonie Hannah and Sarah Longair (2017) ‘Analysing sources’ in History Through Material
Culture. IHR Research Guides, Chapter 5.
Sophie Woodward (2020) ‘Understanding things-in-relations: Surface assemblages, inventories and interviews’ in Material Methods: Researching and Thinking with Things. Sage, Chapter 5.
Amanda Perry-Kessaris 
[…] All things come to an end and so too will this piece, very shortly. A few months after the workshop, all participants were invited to create a PowerPoint presentation of their exhibition. Our presentations may be viewed at the Fantasy Legal exhibitions blog post. […]
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