Ever yours, Vincent

Abstract

Vincent van Gogh, one of the most important figures in Art history, left the world not only his art, but also a large number of letters. The letters bare the first-hand witness of his unique life stories and precious insights about his art. Dedicated to the works and stories of Van Gogh, the Van Gogh Museum (VGM) wants to redesign the current letter gallery in the museum, aiming at creating personal connections between visitors and Van Gogh. To achieve this, multiple user research activities were conducted, based on which three design strategies of the letter gallery were defined. Then a design concept of the gallery was generated. There are three scopes of the research: "personal connection", "personal connection with Van Gogh", and "connecting with Van Gogh in the VGM letter gallery". To address these scopes, a group session, two rounds of visitor interviews, a Van Gogh fans interview and a letter booklet research were done. With the research insights coming together, the author generated the model of "layers of connections with Van Gogh" which illustrates that in order to achieve personal connections with Van Gogh in the letter gallery, the design strategies can be: 1. Trigger visitors' interests in letters through art; 2. Hit visitors' focus points by layering the information; 3. Encourage further exploration of the letters after visitors leave the gallery. Then, how to realize such design strategies? The author proposed a concept of the gallery, consisting of six parts: 1. Introduction; 2. Trailer; 3. Interactive programme; 4. Narrative structure; 5. Online content and 6. Link to VGM multimedia guide. The design explorations mainly focused on "part 3 Interactive programme" and "part 4 Narrative structure", with three concepts generated for each of the two parts and followed by visitor evaluations. After the design explorations, the final concept was presented, consisting of part 1~4. Part 1 Introduction shows the letter themes in the form of stamps, to make the information easier to understand. Part 2 Trailer consists of projections of a painting and a letter quote of the same theme which switch every 10 seconds, to trigger visitors' interests in more letter contents that they will see next. Part 3 Interactive programme give visitors a quick opportunity to engage with the letters without diving into the whole story. In this programme, users can create their own letters using Van Gogh's letter pieces and send the digital letters to someone by scanning a QR code by their phones. Lastly, part 4 Narrative structure presents the selected letters in six life phases of Van Gogh. The four parts together aim to satisfy the three design strategies and the needs of visitors in different engagement levels.