Modern twist to Island's wartime history

Monday 23 March 2015

A creative team went 30 metres underground to bring Jersey’s wartime history to life in a new modern exhibition.

The new OT Gallery exhibit at Jersey War Tunnels tells the story of how the tunnels came to be built during the Occupation.

Jersey War Tunnels gave The Observatory the job of communicating using modern media what happened when thousands of slave and forced workers were brought over by the Germans to fortify the Islands as part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall.

The team of designers, illustrators, animators, sound designers and writers from the Observatory spent months cut off from the modern world as they worked to tell the story of how hard life was for those workers during the Occupation.

The Observatory's Creative Director Ben Hickingbotham said: "Our aim was also to elevate the experience for visitors. Technology has become so widely accessible that attractions, museums and public spaces need to reflect this, providing opportunities to learn through experience with modern media and methods creating immersive education with the impact to truly leave a legacy."

The team has used projection mapped technology on both sides of the tunnel, with each wall telling a story.

Ben said: "One side uses a modelled, wire-framed and rigged photorealistic interpretation of how the slave workers would have looked, a snapshot of history to take visitors back in time.  All the materials that were applied to the wireframes – granite, timbers, shale rock, fabrics, leather and metal implements - were photographed from the existing site to ensure the visual representation was as accurate to the time period as possible.

"Once all details had been meticulously defined, the design was animated. We wanted to show how much of a struggle the OT workers had to endure to extract over 14,000 tonnes of shale during the two-year excavation and construction process.

Poetic short stories tell the story of the slave workers on the other side of the installation while Escape and Death is a section put together as a memorial to the 22 men who died underground while excavating the tunnels.

Ben said: "It was always very important for us that the installation was fully immersive, so that we could ensure the hardships, struggles and rich historical stories could be brought to life using design and technology, and not lost.

"Our aim was also to tell the unfinished stories. The mystery surrounding the tales of escape communicated through visual techniques so the viewer can come to their own conclusions."

Jersey War Tunnels Director Debbie Prosser said: “The Jersey War Tunnels directors wanted to ensure that the new addition to the exhibition was high tech and impressive, and that has certainly been achieved with this installation. However, this is not just about the technology, and we have been impressed by the amount of research which went into the project by the team at The Observatory. Their passion for the project was evident from start to finish.”

Jersey War Tunnels Director Roger Colyer said: "One of our aims in regard to the “Captive Island” Exhibition is to keep it in the forefront of the local population and tourists alike and each year improvements and changes have been made with this aim in mind. 

"The directors also wished to produce something iconic that commemorated the 70 th anniversary of the ending of the Occupation as well as to use Jersey-based firms to carry out this work. We are extremely pleased with the results achieved by the team at The Observatory."

The exhibit will run for nine hours a day, six days a week.

You can watch the Making Of edit here: https://vimeo.com/121445535.