trajan.
building the empire, creating europe
In honor of the Emperor Trajan's 1900th death anniversary, an exhibition was launched at Trajan's Markets (Museum of the Imperial Forums) in Rome, Italy from November 2017-2018.
This critically-acclaimed exhibition included rare works from worldwide collections, including a bronze portrait of Trajan from the Netherlands and fragments of fresco and stucco which were recently excavated from the villa in Altipani di Arcinazzo Romano.
In a team consisting of museum curators and archaeologists, we strategized the storytelling for each exhibition room- including artwork layout and composition for exhibition text, considering the space and narrative of each room.
impact
Over 500 people attended the opening night, and the exhibition was written about in international media, including AP News, ArtForum, and American Journal of Archaeology.
The exhibition was supported by the Government of Rome (Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali), and had collaborated with well-known organizations such as Bulgari, Duke University, Ferrara University, and Softlab.
content writing
As the museum had a large international audience, I implemented all of the exhibition's English written content- translating from Italian and Latin texts; and provided auditory narration for museum rooms, enhancing visitor experience.
This included texts from ancient Roman figures, scientific findings from archaeological research, and essays on Trajan's conquests in Dacia and his ruling as an emperor.
My process included understanding the Italian version written by the curators, and then writing a version that connected with English-speaking audiences- while maintaining the same tone and impact of the original content.
Below is an excerpt of a translated panel
Italian La testa faceva parte della serie di statue di grandi dimensioni che dovevano costituire una galleria di ritratti di importanti personaggi, oppure alla serie delle imagines clipaeatae (ritratti entro grandi scudi marmorei) . Sul retro si vede ancora la sporgenza di marmo, con il grande incasso per il perno che serviva a fissarla ad una parete o lastra retrostante.
Il ritratto è stato attribuito al padre naturale di Traiano, che era stato sotto gli imperatori della dinastia flavia un senatore molto apprezzato, con importanti comandi militari: Plinio il Giovane nel suo Panegirico (discorso di lode) per Traiano, scritto intorno al 100.d.C. lo descrive come “seduto vicino alle stelle” - proximam sideribus. (Plin., Paneg., LXXXIX)
English The head is from a large statue belonging to a series of portraits of important personages or from the series of imagines clipaeatae (portraits in large marble shields). On the back is a marble projection with a large cavity for the pin that fixed it to the wall or to a slab behind it.
This portrait has been identified as Trajan’s natural father, a highly considered senator who held important military positions under the emperors of the Flavian dynasty: in the Panegyric (laudatory speech) written for Trajan around AD 100, Pliny the Younger describes him as being proximam sideribus or “seated near the stars”. (Pliny, Paneg., LXXXIX)
visual design in space
Our goal in this exhibition was to demonstrate the impact of Trajan's rule- both through infrastructure and social values.
Working alongside the museum curators and archaeologists, we segmented each room to tell a different story about Trajan's life and his accomplishments. This included a building section dedicated to domestic & personal matters of Trajan, a hall with architectural models of buildings constructed under Trajan, and a hall of plaster casts of the famous Trajan's Column.
This method of visual storytelling was accompanied by recorded audios I narrated, which included stories about the women in Trajan's life and the Dacian wars.
We presented videos that, in collaboration with Duke University's Dig@Lab, showed the construction of different buildings referencing Trajan's reign- such as Trajan's Trophy (Tropaeum Traiani, based in Adamclisi, Romania), Trajan's Markets (Mercati di Traiano, based in Rome, Italy), and Trajan's Baths (Thermae Traiani, based in Rome, Italy).
The team went even further with immersive features, including a virtual-reality enclosure where an actor of Trajan narrates his life, in a post-mortem context.