Shaping space to tell a story

Professor Sarah Buie's creative work
When was the last time you explored a museum? Looking back on that experience, do you remember individual objects? The way a larger theme was presented? Perhaps you remember feeling transported to another place or time.

Modern museums offer us ways to explore such diverse topics as life in the oceans, global climate change, the lives of workers in the Industrial Revolution, Mayan civilization, Egyptian death rituals and Greek vases. With the expanded scope of today’s museums, exhibition design involves much more than hanging pictures on a wall. Now it often involves creating a total experience that allows us to touch, look, listen, and sometimes even smell and taste.

Professor Sarah Buie is a designer whose primary interest is in exhibition design. She creates three-dimensional spaces that help visitors experience a given topic in the fullest way possible. Toward that end, she might help Over the past few years, Professor Buie has been involved in creating three very different exhibitions for Often she involves undergraduate students in her projects, either by having them participate directly, or by bringing her experiences with particular projects into the classroom. For example, students have recently assisted her in installing the exhibition "Matrix: seeing beneath the surface" at Clark's University Gallery.

Discovering the natural environment: exhibition design at the EcoTarium

The EcoTarium is a museum of environmental science featuring both indoor and outdoor exhibitions located two miles from downtown Worcester. It has recently undergone a process of redefining its identity and mission. Professor Buie was asked to create an exhibition in the museum's entrance area. The purpose of the exhibition is to introduce the visitor to the environmental focus of the museum and set the tone for his or her experience there.

The exhibition consists of a long, custom-designed wooden cabinet that fronts one wall of the museum shop. By creating display spaces that can be opened and closed by the visitor, Professor Buie hoped to foster an urge in the visitor to explore and discover. The cabinet contains three levels: Professor Buie and the museum staff decided on "tree" as the organizing theme for the materials displayed in the cabinet. Professor Buie has for many years explored Buddhist, Hindu and Himalayan cultures. There she has seen the tree used as a sacred symbol representing the interdependence of life, and as a natural space for worship. (Her course Studio Art 204: Sacred Space unites her interest in spatial design with the ways in which natural space and objects are utilized in spiritual life.)

A tree is actually incorporated into the cabinet and serves as its central axis. The tree branches emerge from the top level and are flanked along the top shelf by stuffed birds. The cabinet is made of wood and features tiles of locally grown woods. The cabinet also features artworks centered on the tree theme that were created by several Clark faculty and local students. The drawers and cupboards contain objects from the museum's collection relating to trees and forest life of the New England region. Included are

From Providence to Paris: exhibition design at the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design

In 1905 two sisters, Anna and Laura Tirocchi, emigrated to New York from Italy and moved to Providence in 1907. In 1989, the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design was provided with a rather unusual gift: an haute couture dressmaker's shop. That highly successful shop, created by the Tirocchi sisters, gave Providence society women access to Parisian fashion.

The Tirocchi shop, which contained fitting, reception and workrooms, as well as living quarters for the sisters, closed in 1948. It remained undisturbed until museum staff opened the building and took a step back in time. Present were hundred of bolts of exquisite fabrics, clothing inspired by Paris designers, furnishings, photographs of clients and employees, sewing equipment, letters to and from society women, and business accounts.

The Museum asked Professor Buie to design an exhibition based on the Tirocchi shop. The exhibition's purpose was to extend beyond the display of textiles and costumes. The Museum wanted an exhibition space that would set the shop in economic and social context of early 20th century Providence, and emphasize its tie with Paris fashions and trends. The exhibition would reveal the shop as a link between As well as some of the beautiful clothing produced at the shop, the exhibition allowed the visitor to view A low level of lighting was needed to prevent damage to delicate textiles. Professor Buie turned that constraint into an asset. The soft, dimmed light created a warm and intimate space in keeping with that required at a shop patronized by society women. The Tirocchi establishment was a space wherein wealthy women revealed their physical flaws at a time when a woman's appearance was her greatest asset. In the privacy of their shop, the sisters assessed and dressed their clients to withstand the harsh and unforgiving light of public scrutiny.

Defining Moments: exhibition design at Yale University Art Gallery

This year the Yale University Art Gallery is helping to celebrate Yale's tercentennial with an exhibition called 'Art for Yale: Defining Moments.' Professor Buie, a Yale alumna, was selected to create an exhibition that would focus on the story of the arts at Yale since 1701. For Buie, there were two significant design challenges In addition to 125 of the greatest works of art in the collection, the exhibition includes