Case Study
National Maritime Museum

The National Maritime Museum was mounting an exhibition called The North-West Passage, An Arctic Obsession. To enhance the visitor experience, curators decided to include audio as part of the interpretation, with short clips launched by pushing buttons on listening stations on the gallery walls.

We were commissioned to produce several short audio clips of actors reading extracts from the letters and diaries of famous explorers. We also interviewed two present-day explorers, Ann Daniels and Jim McNeill. Short clips from these interviews were presented as part of the exhibition, while longer versions can be heard in the museum's podcast series.

Here are three of the narrative clips, all less than a minute long.

John Ross on finding  the fictional 'Croker's Mountains' at the entrance to Lancaster Sound, 1818

George Back describes the stark conditions experienced by Franklin’s 1819-22 overland expedition, 1821

William Edward Parry’s views on the possible discovery of a North- West Passage, and on extending the whaling trade, 1820