An interactive online exhibition to collect data for a digital humanities project

Client: Arts Equator, in partnership with NUS Department of Malay Studies
Project dates: 12 May 2022 – 31 Aug 2022
Services: design, web development, user research

OVERVIEW

Being and Becoming: Of Femininities in the Malay World Through 50 Images engages with collections of archival photographs, postcards and illustrations from the mid-1800s to the 1950s.

They feature people and places of the Malay world, encompassing the region of present-day Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. In examining thousands of images held in collections all over the world, we select 50 iconic images to actively view them as living cultural products open to reinterpretation and methods of analysis.

Employing the three broad themes of “Body”, “Space”, and “Activity”, fifty primary images have been selected to raise questions, in the eyes of contemporary viewers, of received ideas on femininities, as they intersect with social class, place, race and empire in the Malay world.

The exhibition, hosted by ArtsEquator Ltd with web design and development by Tusitala, was available for viewing online from 12 May – 31 August 2022 at www.beingandbecomingmalayworld.com

Being and Becoming: Of Femininities in the Malay World Through 50 Images

CONCEPT

Challenges

Our main concern designing and developing the website was making an adaptive and smooth online experience that would elevate the contents of the project by gamifying the exhibition experience online. We wanted to ensure there could be different levels of user interactivity with the ability to track these engagements for the collection of data to inform researcher’s work. 

Ideation

The principle moving forward is that while researchers will have distinct areas and focuses in their written chapters, the exhibition should narrate collectively to appropriately present the representation of femininity as they intersect with social class, place, race and empire in the Malay World. 

Outcome

We wanted to generate conversation on these issues through the website, thus leading us to think of ways to spark questions, emotions and responses to the work presented where possible. To enable users to think deeply about issues of representation, a percentage of the selected images were selected to add points of engagement such as questions, extended captions, links and cross links to other images, polls and so on to make the online experience more interactive.

PROCESS

How do we make an online exhibition interactive in COVID-19 times?

Other than producing an adaptive website with a seamless loading process of the various ways users could interact with the online exhibition,  we wanted the aesthetics of the web design to elevate the contents of the exhibition that was not only easy to navigate, but also arresting. 

The image of a non-linear or disorganised flow emerged when picturing the movement of individuals in exhibitions. Oftentimes, there isn’t a structure for how we navigate exhibitions, and the main page reflects that spontaneity: users can click on any one of the circles and gamify their experience about the art and its history. 

The virtual exhibition was to serve as the visual basis for the dialogue and interrogation of these images, drawing audiences into a conversation around the exhibited photographs and their implications.

Therefore, game-like aspects were added to the web development and design to make it not only educational, but interactive and fun. 

This exhibition was part of a research project, Being and Becoming Female in the Malay World: Interrogating and Curating the Photo-Archives of Early Singapore, supported by the National Heritage Board.

Accompanying the online exhibition was a series of seminars that further dived into the themes explored in this exhibition, from discussing how women and femininities were represented, named, classified, eroticised, exoticised, commodified, and constructed as a racialised gender to re-reading colonial-era images. Learn more here

PROJECT TEAM

• Organised by Arts Equator
• Led by Associate Professor Maznah Mohamad, Department of Malay Studies, NUS
• Researchers:
  • Dr Suriani Suratman, Department of Malay Studies, NUS
  • Dr Imran Tajudeen, Department of Malay Studies, NUS
  • Associate Professor Dr  Bahar Gürsel, Department of History of Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey