Case Study - Institut Pasteur Exhibition at HKUMAG

WOW! The absolute latest in Viral Communications!

After months of design, measuring, re-measuring, printing, re-designing, and re-printing, the exhibition From the Plague to New Emerging Diseases: A Chronicle of Pasteurian Research in Hong Kong kicked off as scheduled tonight at the HKU Museum and Art Gallery.

Having produced the corporate video and brochure for the Hong Kong University Pasteur Research Centre in 2006, for the last year we have been discussing the idea of a museum exhibition celebrating Yersin's isolation of the causative agent of the Bubonic Plague in Hong Kong in 1894.

Well, pretty soon things began to snowball. The Institut Pasteur in Paris is celebrating its 120th anniversary, Le French May is again in full swing... and before we know it we were coordinating with the Institut Pasteur, HKU Departments of Medicine, Zoology, and Microbiology, HKU-PRC, the Consulate-General of France in Hong Kong and Macau, HKU Museum and Art Gallery, the Museum of Medical Sciences, the French International School, and the Pasteur Museum in Paris.

After our crash course in virology and microbiology, hence our newfound compulsion for hand-washing, we needed to break down all the material into a format that could interest a PhD biologist as well as a 8-year-old student. And we all know that scientists are far easier to entertain than 8-year-olds.

The answer: Multimedia
Adding to the traditional info-panels, Filmages' exhibition design features scale models, photos, scientific artifacts, documentary videos, and actual stuffed carriers or "vectors" of infectious diseases laid out over three galleries.

A Germ and Germ-fighters gallery, a Yersin gallery (with a beautiful reconstruction of his Hong Kong straw hut, thanks to Architect Albert Zambrano and his amazing team), and a Hong Kong context gallery where there are some historical, and gruesome, photos of Hong Kong in the "old days" tell the stories of the surprisingly central roles that Hong Kong, Alexandre Yersin, and Louis Pasteur have played in the development and advancement of microbilogical research.

The exhibition launch was attended by senior scientists and academics, the Consul-General of France, and Dr. Alice Dautry, Director-General of the Institut Pastuer, live via video conference from Paris.

Check it out at the University Museum and Art Gallery, 94 Bonham Road, Hong Kong, running through to July 14, 2008.

Having trouble getting your kids to wash up properly? Bring them along, too. Problem solved, we guarantee it!!