Simon Meiklejohn BA hons
Museum display work
Specialist display mounts and structures, produced for large or awkward objects and complicated displays.
Mount making is a very particular art. It is always the case that an object mount should be as discreet and elegant as possible. It should be stable, structurally sound and provide appropriate support to the object.
Kelvingrove museum and gallery, Glasgow 2006
Sea Henge exhibition, Kings Lynn museum 2009
The "New Century Project" at the Kelvingrove museum and art gallery in Glasgow was an 8 year project that came to it's conclution in 2006. It represented a complete refurbishment of the building and redisplay of it's collections as well as new and traveling displays. Here is a snapshot of some of the displays I was commissioned to create.
Royal Institute,
London 2008
During the refurbishment of the Royal Institute a dynamic display of a collection of scientific instruments, known as the spottiswood collection, was required to hang from the ceiling of the new cafeteria area.
This spiral display frame I created, with individual object mounts by Tony Jones.
The "Sea Henge" exhibition at Kings Lynn is the display of a circle of 56 oak posts and a large "Central Stump" that where recovered from a beach near Kings Lynn after being exposed by encroaching tides.
The Central Stump, 2 tons in weight and standing 2.5 meters tall, is an oak tree stump dating to 2500bc and was found standing inverted at the center of the circle of posts.
Following over a year of drying and preservation work at the Mary Rose Trust at Portsmouth, I was awarded the commission to create a display mount and install the stump in the exhibition.
Riverside Museum, Glasgow 2010
Dubbed Glasgow’s answer to the Guggenheim, the £74 million wave-shaped Riverside Museum, designed by acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid, is the new home of the city’s transport museum and opened on 21st June 2011. In the first three months since opening its launch, the museum attracted more than 750,000 visitors.
I received the commission for the "special mounts" package and spent 18 months in Glasgow creating new displays for the museum.