Exhibition space
Our displays took visitors behind the scenes at a range of South West Museums and archives, illuminating their various treasures connected to the life and career of Vivien Leigh.
The exhibition guided visitors through different archives and collections, looking at the way Vivien Leigh’s glamour, star image and family connections have influenced the collecting policies of local museums and their dress and costume collections, and how fan practices have led to other forms of memorial for the star.
The exhibition space featured several original artefacts from the different partner museums, including: the Gone with the Wind nightdress from Topsham Museum and the scrapbook about Vivien Leigh maintained by its founder, Dorothy Holman; an original painting created by Vivien Leigh herself; and a host of historical ephemera from the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, including toys, games, postage stamps, vinyl recordings and fan magazines. In addition, an array of interactive digital tools and interfaces were accessible to visitors, including two large touch screen panels on which 3D models of dress artefacts could be viewed, rotated and magnified, and on which the project Storymap - created to chart the history of the Gone with the Wind nightdress - could be played.
In two window seat spaces visitors could sit and listen to extracts from our project podcasts with snippets of conversation from a range of curators, researchers and collectors.
On our fan table, visitors could flip through an illustrated history of the relationship between Vivien Leigh and life-long fan Joyce Attwood and view beautiful large scale restorations of publicity stills and film and theatrical images from Vivien Leigh’s career, created by fan collector Andrew Batt.