FEPA News

FEPA NEWS 45 34 FEPA Exhibiting The title of the exhibit • Short, precise and relevant general information on the subject • A description of the purpose of the exhibit (What is included in the exhibit and what is omitted) • A description of the scope of the exhibit • A plan of the structure of the exhibit – chapters or sections etc.– rather than a “frame by frame” or “page by page” description • A list of personal research by the exhibitor within the subject (with references to articles or literature) • A list of the most important literature references” Many exhibitors choose a very free and outdated interpretation of the above that condenses the guidelines into: “ The requirement for the introduction page is a plan and literature references. ” This is an over-simplification, and goes a long way towards having an unappealing, uninspired and uninformative introduction page – when the plan becomes an index-numbered ‘shopping list’ (See Fig. 1). The Purpose of the Introduction Page The introduction page serves two purposes: 1. To explain and promote the structure and qualities of the exhibit. And in doing so: 2. Induce the spectator to spend time looking at the entire exhibit. The introduction page is the only place where you really can reach out to the spectator. A shopping list plan does not achieve that. To explain (and promote) the collection in narrative format is much better suited than a rigid and unappealing index listing of what is shown. The spectator can be neutral visitors, or members of the jury. Personally, I like to exhibit for the interested visitor, not necessarily for the jury. But exhibiting is after all a competition and you would do yourself a disfavour if you did not also use the introduction page to “talk” to the Jury. Remember this is the only sheet of the collection that you can be sure the jury reads. Abbreviation should be avoided in the introduction page, but if you are using abbreviations in the collection, it is worthwhile ‘translating’ these in the introduction page. However, philatelic abbreviations in widespread use such as the English ‘wmk’ (watermark), ‘cds’ (circular date stamp), ‘ERD’ (earliest recorded date), ‘LRD’ (latest recorded date) do not require explanation. Fig.1. How NOT to do it – An index-numbered list.