Curating Your Story

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there. And welcome to another episode of Sound Stories, an inspirational podcast for creative professionals and storytellers who want to improve their lives at home and at work. I’m Stephanie Ciccarelli, your host and co founder of Voices.com.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Creative professionals are no stranger to curation. Whether we’re assembling playlists or curating interesting articles to share with our audience, we’re constantly on the lookout for ways to tell our brand story through those gems, the gems that we discover and share along the way. Today in studio, we’re joined by Amber Lloydlangston, curator at Museum London in London, Ontario. And together, we’re going to go on a journey through curation, specifically taking a deeper dive into how we tell stories through the objects we gather. It’s great to have you here, Amber.

Amber Lloydlangston:

It’s a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Of course. So can you describe your job as a curator? Now, for instance, how do you go about finding objects of interest and what are you looking for?

Amber Lloydlangston:

Well, as a curator, I do a number of things. So I develop exhibitions for certain, but I also collect objects in the community. So if we start with exhibition development, say one of the things I have to do is often I’m given a subject. And so then I have to think about what that subject could possibly be, how it should be developed. And then I start looking in the database, trying to find objects that might support the story I want to tell, and then go and actually look into the vault to search the collections. So for example, I’m currently working on an exhibition about radio and television in London, the history of it. It turns out that Museum London’s collections aren’t particularly rich in this area. So another thing I have to do as a curator is reach out into the community and say, “Hey, I am doing this exhibition. Who has objects, who has images, who has stories to tell?” There are many things that are wonderful, that are coming in.

Amber Lloydlangston:

But one that excites me particularly is a tiny little metal button that was given to a sweet little girl back in the sixties when she was on the television show, Romper Room, supported by photographs. So I have photographs of tiny little Mary Jane playing on the set of Romper Room, as well as the button that she received that said she was a Romper Room do bee because she was a good girl. She wasn’t a don’t bee, she was a do bee. So she saved this all these years because it was something that was really special to her, part of her life story. And now I can share it via this object. And so it is incredibly precious.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wow. So just to remind us, because not all of us grew up watching Romper Room. I know I did. They never said my name have to say, but what station, what television station was Romper Room broadcasted on?

Amber Lloydlangston:

That was on CFPL. So that’s what it was then, which actually was radio station or still is radio station and television programming. It’s become CTV London. It’s gone through a number of iterations over the years, but it was the actual second private television broadcaster in Canada actually, second after Sudbury. And only second, I will add, because they built a brand new studio from scratch. So pretty exciting.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wow. So from what I’m gathering, obviously when you go about making an exhibition or curating an exhibition, you are maybe having a theme that you’re thinking of already, like you just said, television and radio. And that’s really interesting. And for all of us listening, I’m sure that it’s a wonderful topic that no doubt, individuals here were like, “Oh my goodness. If my local museum put something together, I’d have something to give them. We have this old microphone from whenever. “We have,” I don’t know, maybe it’s even a film reel, perhaps depending on how far back they go. But it sounds like just from the overarching level, you have a theme and then you go about finding the objects that will help you to tell a story.

Amber Lloydlangston:

And that is absolutely correct. Sometimes it’s so easy. I actually have struggled with this radio and TV one, to tell you the truth. And I’ve struggled because initially all I could think of was the technology behind production. And I came to the conclusion that that was just not that interesting. And do you know why? Simply because there aren’t the personal stories. What I ultimately found to be more exciting and more interesting was the sub theme I’ve created within there, which is the role of radio and TV in the community. So what has radio and TV done for people in the community over the years? Here’s an example. I was speaking with various radio personalities and one of them being Peter Garland, who was on a number of radio stations in London. And he told me about the huge commitment that CFPL at that time put into Jesse’s journey.

Amber Lloydlangston:

Jesse Davidson, as a young man who suffered from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, we’ve since lost him. But in 1995, I believe it was he and his father did a walk across Ontario. In fact, John wheeled Jesse in his wheelchair across Ontario. So I wanted to tell that story because CFPL, both radio and TV, supported it, publicized, it helped raise funds for it. It was huge. And I was able to speak with John, Jesse’s father, and say, “Listen, I want to tell this story. Would you permit me the honor, the privilege of sharing this story that you have with your son?” And he said, yes. And the object is actually provided, that I’m so excited about, is a hat. And it is just a little Tilley hat, but covered in little buttons from all the places he and Jesse went to, but it was Jesse’s hat.

Amber Lloydlangston:

So this is a treasured memento of a son who has known since died. So he basically said, “Here you go. Don’t lose it.”

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

No, you don’t want to lose that.

Amber Lloydlangston:

We wont know don’t lose it. It’s irreplaceable. A Tilley hat, without that story, not so interesting, but a Tilley hat with that story. Gold.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And it’s all about the stories as we’ve come to know. So just as we go along in our conversation, I was just trying to relate this back to anyone, any creative who might be trying to kind of consolidate these vignettes, these stories kind of images from the past that can help them to bring together an audience. And for some of us, I mean, I’m just thinking this could be a Twitter chat where people are out there and they’re all talking about a certain topic and you’re basically curating a conversation around a topic.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

But when you have all these kinds of likeminded, different ideas that are coming together under one umbrella for a museum, and it’s an exhibition, and then you have pieces that are there within it for us and other ways, it could be something like the Pinterest board, it could be a Twitter chat. It could be even one of those curated kind of stories where you aggregate different things that people have said, quotes that relate to a certain topic for instance. I think that there’s something to it. We like to draw upon a pool of inspiration that kind of all relates to itself, but like something that holds it together. It just seems to me that as a people even, it’s something that we enjoy doing is saying I’m really interested in this topic, but I love to know the little stories, the little bits that relate to me that I can pull and find in these various objects.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So on that line, I’m just wondering if there’s anything else that you can share with us about maybe some of the exhibitions that are already at the museum. I think you had mentioned in previous conversations that we’ve had about an ironing board, I believe.

Amber Lloydlangston:

Yes. We have more than one child ironing board in the collection, as it turns out. In fact, we have two. Now technically as a curator, I might think twice about bringing in an object that is already represented in the collection, but you see the second ironing board that came to us, came with an amazing story and all sorts of other supporting items. So again, all about the story. The first ironing board in the collection, we have very little information in our session records. So I assume it was a treasured toy that somebody had that they kept because they wanted it to be just like mom.

Amber Lloydlangston:

But the second one that came in was donated by the brother of a little girl who had died at the age of five. So it came in with a little toy handbag that had been hers. It came in with a little toy high chair that had been hers. It came in with all sorts of little greeting cards that had been sent to her parents on Patsy Ann’s birth because her name was Patsy Ann. It came in with a little get well card because Patsy Ann sadly had been born with a hole in her heart. And she was born just a few years too early, because not long after her death, they figured out how to fix it. They could fix that, what is now a fairly minor birth defect with the way medical advances have gone, but then also came with a telegram from the auntie saying, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” because she’d got word that Patsy Ann was dying.

Amber Lloydlangston:

And then it came with all of the sympathy cards.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh my goodness.

Amber Lloydlangston:

Sympathy cards, all the little floral tribute cards that had come, the little ribbon that had her name on it from the reef. And so now I’ve got this child’s ironing board and what it stands for is a life too short, but also a mother’s grief because these items were treasured by, by Patsy Anne’s mum. She could not let them go. She never got over the death of her baby girl. Ever. She really, really suffered over the years. And when she died, it was actually her son and daughter-in-law who cleaned out the house and ultimately donated this stuff to Museum London.

Amber Lloydlangston:

And I am so grateful because I’ve been finding the odd gem like that, where I’m able to put two and two together about a treasured item. I have an idea in my head about an upcoming exhibition one of these times, and it will be about death and dying and grief. And was able to pair a photograph of a little girl with a dress and the story that was with the photograph, but not with the dress was that that little one died. And so here we have this dress. It’s just wonderful. When you can put those things together.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I was going to say, not to cut you off there at all, because this is beautiful, but I’m imagining that, because I want to relate this back to everybody, as someone who is working toward curating an exhibit like that, we’re not experts in everything, so would you be drawing upon expertise, say from a thanatology professor of some kind? Thanatology, for our listeners, is the study of death and dying. Just thinking that sometimes we have these wonderful ideas and we see a connection where we’re like, “I want to tell a story and I really want to do it right and to kind of understand how to frame it even,” because if you’re putting something together, then you want to know what all those elements are. You want to take them on a journey and this is what we do in story. We always take people on a journey. So have you ever had to consult people outside of the museum? I know you have your own expertise, but has it been helpful for you to reach out to people who are content or subject matter experts in those fields that you want to create curations around?

Amber Lloydlangston:

100%. I know what I know and I know that well, but mostly what I really know well is how to put an exhibition together. I always have to do a lot of research when I’m actually assembling and putting an exhibition together. And that absolutely does involve going out into the community. So I’m doing it right now for the radio and television one. I did a show called Let’s Eat, all about food and cooking in London, Ontario. Now to do the historical research on that, to do the sociological research on that, that was all right. That was fine. The literature is easy to find.

Amber Lloydlangston:

I had no problem, but what made it personal, what made it special and really relevant to London, because I wanted it to be, was the fact that I was able to conduct 23 oral history interviews with various Londoners of different religions, different ethnicities, different experiences. And it was actually using their quotes throughout the exhibition to share their stories and their perspectives about food, about cooking, about its significance being far more than just something to nourish our bodies, but all of the emotion and the history that’s embedded in the foods we like to eat.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Obviously when we all go through the museum or anywhere like a gallery or something, then we’re looking up at a work. But beside that work is a description. There’s a title. There’s the artist who made it. Then of course there’s some context for why this is here, what it is, what the meaning is, just leading them through that story, that deeper aspect of what they’re seeing. So when you go about putting the exhibition together, how much time and effort goes into creating those descriptions? Do you have to do those? Do they come to you? And how many words are you limited to on one of those flags? I’m sure there’s got to be limited.

Amber Lloydlangston:

Oh my heavens. Yes. Well, at least I try to be fairly rigorous with myself. So let me see. There’s a number of questions there. Writing text is always a challenge. It is. Depending on the goal you’re trying to achieve and the message you’re trying to communicate, it can be more or less work, really. So if I think of the exhibition that’s on right now called Canadian Eh, a history of this nation signs and symbols, for me, I wanted a lot of quotes. So I wanted Canadians from the past, from the present to talk about the signs and symbols I was featuring because I didn’t want it to be all the museum voice, which is what it is if you don’t include any. So then you’ve got this authoritative museum saying, “These are the signs and symbols.` Thou shalt accept them.”

Amber Lloydlangston:

Whereas I wanted there to be debate, I wanted there to be questioning and I wanted there to be almost a sort of conversation with visitors as they engaged the material that was before them. So it was a lot of research to actually identify the quotes I wanted, to get the right attitude and tone I was looking for, but it was fun. That was not hard. It was fun. I really had a good time.

Amber Lloydlangston:

Now to your next question, which is, do we have word length? Yes. Or at least I try and use something called a text hierarchy. If we have a title, which 10 words say, an A-level text, which is, say 20 words to 30 words, B-level text is about 75, give or take. And those title A, B are not associated with objects or images necessarily. Then I go to a C-level, which has roughly 60 words associated with an object or an image, painting, whatever. And then D-levels, which are about 20 to 30. Now that’s a bit flexible, but I find it’s very, very important to try to respect those text hierarchies as best I can. Simply it gets too easy to overwhelm a visitor with text and they’ll walk into an exhibition and they’re just totally daunted by the volume of words they’re faced with.

Amber Lloydlangston:

An exhibition is not a book. You are not sitting down comfortably in your living room with a nice beverage or a cup of tea or whatever the case may be. You are standing with maybe your friend or your significant other, or your child hauling at your jacket. You’re busy having a social experience. You need something easy. So for example, within that, I have a sort of rule that I try to adhere to, which is, I always start with the object as well. “Here, you see X,” and then give the historical significance for it. So there’s all sorts of rules and regs that I try to respect and to adopt in my practice.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

That’s interesting. And just trying to think of how that could apply even to someone describing a product on their website, or may be a retailer. “Here is X.” “This is the couch,” whatever it might be. It’s so important that you tell people what something is, because it might not be obvious to everyone necessarily. I mean, some things do appear quite obvious as we know, but not all. And I love how you said there is kind of that hierarchy that you’re respecting of there’s the, A, B, C, and D. What’s in the D? I can gather, okay, title, subheading, and then a description for context, but what do you put at the end?

Amber Lloydlangston:

Okay. So I’ll just go back. So the A-level is really high overarching message of the section, say. B-level gives a bit of the historical background. So now you’ve done that. You don’t repeat. C-level at 60 words, goes into a subject a little deeper, but focusing on an image or an artifact. A D-level is again, not repeating information already said, but there’s often just a simple descriptor in this photograph. You see … Oh, I don’t know. Let me think of an example … “Johnny Canuck, Assemble in the 19th Century of Canada”. That’s it. Nice and simple pimple. Another thing I do just to clarify about my practice. If I give myself enough time, I’m a big fan of something called the Hemingway App.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, do tell.

Amber Lloydlangston:

I love the Hemingway App. You run your text through it and it tells you, “Your reading level is at a university level,” which is fine if that’s what you’re going for. But if you’re aiming for grade eight, which is something that is usually advised for museum text, because you’re getting a mixed audience, then, then you know, you have to fix. And so it’ll tell you, “You don’t need a 40 word sentence. You maybe would like to cut that into a couple of ideas,” or, “You have used the passive voice.” It’s also completely against adverbs.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh my gosh. Really?

Yes. And I wondered why. And then I said to myself, “Why?” So I did some research. “Why do you hate adverbs? Surely adverbs are perfectly nice,” but then they said, “No, usually there is a stronger verb for the adverb. Why say ‘Run quickly,’ if you can say ‘sprint’?”

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, that’s more precise.

Amber Lloydlangston:

Isn’t it though?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

It’s more colorful.

Amber Lloydlangston:

I know.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I see so-

Amber Lloydlangston:

I was a huge fan of that. I love the Hemingway App. So there you go.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So the Hemingway App, it’s probably available for iOS and Android. Anyone wants to go looking for that.

Amber Lloydlangston:

You can actually just get it off of Google and use it on your computer. You can just cut and paste your text into it, and it will tell you, and you can fix it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Okay. So kind of like the Fog Index then as well. So others may be more familiar with that, where it will again tell you the reading level, “Uh oh, this is college level.” And really, on the web or for general audiences, you want to be aiming for what grade would it be? What grade level?

Amber Lloydlangston:

Well, we aim for grade eight. And I think that’s not a bad thing for sort of general consumption either because, well, especially if it’s say product related, people may be in a bit of a hurry and they don’t need a novel. They’re not looking for an academic experience. They’re looking for some basic information to help them make a decision, say if it’s about a product. And another thing about websites is that managing text levels is really important in that context as well. There’s nothing worse than having to scroll through volumes of text on a website. Try to fit it on one page so that you don’t have to scroll down, scroll down, scroll down to read through everything. It’s too much.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. I’m thinking that we should all take a leaf out of your book. It’s less copy, but it’s more direct. It’s more actionable. It’s more descriptive and little adverbs, sorry, I can just find a better verb. It just seems to me that it’s a learning that we can all take from what you’re doing and how we can apply that. So something else that occurred to me is, maybe we don’t think about it, but as humans, we definitely attach stories to objects. So for instance, even in the home decorating industry, locating items with a story or authentic items has become very trendy. Now, how does this intersect with what you do at Museum London?

Amber Lloydlangston:

Well, I think that’s an interesting idea. I am a HGTV junkie say, so I think what I recently saw on one show was that they were redoing a couples’ kitchen. And the thing that they worked in was a bit of countertop, which had once been part the floor of a bowling alley. And so they translated it into a countertop. And I thought that was really interesting because it was personal to that family. I wonder about the degree of authenticity of objects that aren’t original to the family who created them. I wonder then if that isn’t just borrowed authenticity and does that really, really count?

Amber Lloydlangston:

So I think what’s interesting and perhaps more challenging for a designer would be to actually look through the treasures and the mementos and the souvenirs, and their the same, that a person has accumulated to find out how they actually tell the life story of a person to make a space really personal, because otherwise I think if it’s just things that you’ve bought from antique shops, well, that’s a real eggbeater and I’m going to decorate your kitchen with it. Well, it’s pretty, but where’s the personal story? How does that tell your story? How does that make it your personal space? So I’m a little leery about that. I’m not to say that you shouldn’t purchase interesting new things that can then become part of your new, personal story. But I think combining own material with new material, or purchased antique material, is an interesting way to go.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Which is why all of these personal stories are so integral to your exhibits and why they’re successful. Just thinking about a show that I love to watch, shout out to Drew Prichard, Salvage Hunter. So anyway, his objects, he goes out, finds them, manor homes in England, Scotland, Wales he’s even gone so far as into continental Europe to find some of these wonderful objects. And oftentimes they do have stories. So is it possible to adopt a story to bring it into your environment?

Amber Lloydlangston:

Absolutely. I think what you’re pointing out is that stories are what we make them and objects can carry any number of different stories. We can value things that came from a hundred year-old home because they’re now something that’s been salvaged, something that’s been saved, something that might have been destroyed, which is now going to live on. And then we can imbue it with a new story, remembering where it came from. And then as I say, creating it, recreating it as our own. As for objects that might speak to a business history, even if they didn’t come from one particular business that is now featuring them, certainly it’s a way to show change over time, to show the way doing business has changed. It’s more than possible. Absolutely. And in fact, it’s not always possible to find every object with a great personal story, but it doesn’t mean you’re not going to use it. You still have something else that you can tell with it. It’s just sometimes those really personal ones can take an exhibition or any kind of, sort of display just up a notch.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Of course. That’s wonderfully put. Much like curated content that a marketer would share, curated exhibits that travel can raise awareness of important stories. So do you have any examples of iconic exhibits that have brought stories to the masses?

Amber Lloydlangston:

Oh, wow. Well certainly, of course. I think we just can think of things like the Tutankhamen exhibit that traveled and traveled and traveled and traveled and went everywhere. I think a lot of us can remember having gone to see an exhibition like that. So we’ve seen Tutankhamen’s mask and it’s just incredible because what then happens is that you really feel a personal connection with that history that happened so, so long ago, it seems so remote and so unconnected with our own experience. But all of a sudden, you realize that this was a young man who lived and he died young. And it’s just incredible when that sort of thing happens.

Amber Lloydlangston:

I think it happens similarly with exhibitions that have traveled about Pompeii. Those ones, I think people are just struck by, I would say, seeing those encased bodies, it’s just horrifying and all of a sudden it can transport you, potentially even better than the film, to that time and what those people experienced as this terrible eruption happened. On a smaller level, I did an exhibition called Peace, the exhibition at the Canadian War Museum. That was my major, major exhibition in the years I was there. And that one has traveled. And only to a couple of other museums, but nonetheless, it still was able to take stories about Canada, about Canadians’ contribution for peace farther a field to help broaden ideas about what it means to work for peace. And I think that was pretty exciting too.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And those are all our own stories. They become our stories. As Canadians, that definitely is. But I’m just thinking, King Tut coming to the Rom or whatever might be. It’s almost like he belongs to us all because he’s traveled and he’s visited. And I’m talking about him like he’s alive. But these kind of traveling exhibits, these moments in time, pivotal moments in time and in people who really did make their mark on history, they do all in their own way, belong to us as a people.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Now, as something that I was thinking of too, is you might have heard of this wonderful exhibit, but basically Dr. Seuss was a wild collector of hats. He loved his hats. In fact, he had lots of hats and at some point his widow had actually put together an exhibit that traveled, I think it was in 2013, not sure, of his hats from city to city across the US so that people could see these whimsical hats that were either inspired by the art that he created in his books. I think there actually was a Cat in the Hat hat, but these are the sorts of things that we create content or exhibits and stories around themes that matter to us and in people that matter to us.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And so when those can be reached by a wide audience, whether it be a story, an article you published, a podcast, a video, an exhibit, a film, you’re putting together a story that people can access and become, not just a viewer, but someone who’s actually participating. And I think that’s really important is that we don’t lose a connection that we have to these stories and to close it off, I just want to ask you, Amber, what are some of the challenges that you face in your job?

Amber Lloydlangston:

Oh. And the number defining a story sometimes can be a challenge. There’s so many angles you could often take with many different stories, but whether you’re working in a museum, whether you have a store, whether you’re working on a website, there’s always the question of space. How much space do you have to tell your story? So I have relatively small space that I’ve worked with in my time at Museum London though. Few times I’ve had a larger one, which has been really great, has allowed me to go to town a little bit more. So dealing with space is a huge issue. You know what? Sometimes it can be a challenge to find those objects with the stories. And that, as I explained earlier, was what I’m experiencing right now, or at least was experienced. That’s ending now. Happily, things are coming out of the woodwork. Those stories that I want to tell about radio and TV, what are the objects?

Amber Lloydlangston:

People say, “Well, what are you looking for?” And I say, “Well, I don’t know. I need you to tell me what you have and why it should matter.” And that is a big question that I always have to ask, which keeps me on track when I start to stray is, “So what? Why should I care? Why should my audience care?” And that takes you so far. But I have a colleague who tells me repeatedly, “Amber, you are not your audience.” And so I have to always remind myself as well, that just because I find a little tiny bit of information super, super interesting doesn’t mean it’s really required for the visitor to understand my overarching message. So another challenge is trying to stick with the need to know, versus the nice to know, because as soon as you start adding the nice to know, or, “I think this is really cool, and you should know it,” you start writing too much text.

Amber Lloydlangston:

So identifying the message, sticking to the message is always a big, big step and can be really hard if you’re struggling with a subject to get the message. What is the message? What is the grab? What’s going to make people say, “Oh, I want to see that exhibition. It sounds relevant to me, to my experience? I want to see myself. I can see myself in this exhibition.”

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Simplicity. Sounds like simplicity.

Amber Lloydlangston:

Simplicity, and yet fairly complicated too. And another thing I continue to struggle with is to do a better job at representing the diversity of my community. We don’t really have it in the … well, we don’t have it in the collections. There’s no “really “about it. I’m trying to build that. So I’m trying to collect objects that speak to disability, living with disability, whatever it may be. But with those personal stories. So I recently acquired a jacket worn by a young man who filled the role of Easter Seal’s Timmy, back in the late sixties. So it’s a simple little coat. You would never think it was anything special, except for it has his story. A boy with cerebral palsy who served as Timmy to raise awareness and funds for children suffering with physical disabilities. So fabulous wanting to build on that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Lots of challenges in any line of work, especially being constrained to space. So Amber, if anyone would like to see your curations and the exhibitions at Museum London, you can obviously, if they’re from around here, they can come in and see it. It’s free to come into the museum. I want to stress that a lot of these wonderful places that we have available to us as artists to become inspired are actually freely available to enter. But obviously, if you’re not here or near a museum, how is it that someone could see what that work is and maybe be inspired by the great things you’ve talked about today?

Amber Lloydlangston:

That is an excellent question. Unfortunately, our exhibits don’t have an online life afterward, which is a bit of a challenge. But if there’s anything that I have spoken of that does sound relevant or interesting that you’d like to know more about, I have exhibition files, I try and have exhibition photos. I certainly have all the texts, the research, I have it all to hand and I would be happy to share anything I have that anybody thinks might be useful to them. And anybody who feels like they would like to learn more, or if they feel like I might have information that would be helpful, please visit museumlondon.ca. You should be able to find my email address there and I will be very happy to enter into conversation who share what I can.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, that’s it for this week. Thank you for joining us on Sound Stories. If you’d like to subscribe to some stories, there are two really easy ways to do that. You can either go to iTunes, look us up there. Really easy. You’ll get every episode as soon as it’s ready. Or you could go to our website, Voices.com/podcasts/soundstories.