International Year of Chemistry 2011 Australia - Travelling Exhibitions
Client - Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI)
In 2010, the RACI consulted Jesse regarding developing displays about chemistry to tour Australia as
a featured activity of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC) during 2011. They accepted Jesse’s proposal
to develop five small exhibitions suitable for display in large public libraries. These exhibitions are intended
to have a lifetime beyond IYC, providing RACI with a means to present chemical topics to the public up through 2015.
Jesse developed all aspects of the concepts and content in consultation with the RACI. He partnered with Geoff Webster of
Design at Work, who designed and managed the production of the exhibitions. The exhibition content and display elements were conceived to allow for flexibility of layout as the libraries’ display spaces would have different sizes and shapes. The exhibition could be even be divided between spaces on different floors or distributed through a floor of the library.
Image reproduced courtesy of the RACI
Two of the exhibitions, Nature’s chemical diversity and
Healthy chemistry, were featured at the national launch
of IYC in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra in February 2011. The photograph (above) shows Senator Carr, Minister of
the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR), viewing exhibits in
Nature’s chemical diversity in the Great Hall.
The Questacon branch of DIISR gave the RACI grants for the development and production of the five exhibitions in the overall project.
After the launch these two exhibitions commenced their tours through Queensland and Victoria. The image below shows
Healthy chemistry at The Age
Library in Broadmeadows, Victoria.
Image reproduced courtesy of the RACI
Photo: Jesse Shore
The next two exhibitions, Chemistry and the nucleus (shown above in Liverpool
Library, NSW) and
Eat, drink and chemistry, started touring through New South Wales and Western Australia respectively in March.
RACI then commissioned Jesse to develop the fifth exhibition,
Material futures, which was launched in Adelaide in August as part of the massive Science Alive event.
This exhibition then toured South Australia and Tasmania. RACI has asked Jesse to develop and manage the tour for 2012 with the exhibitions changing states at the end of 2011.
