Nissen Richards Studio created the exhibition and graphic design for a groundbreaking exhibit – ‘Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict’ – at IWM London. It is the first exhibition by a major museum in the UK to shine a light on this difficult subject matter and has been created with the aim of empowering survivors, informing visitors, and contributing towards meaningful change.

Because of the distressing nature of the subject matter and testimonies, Nissen Richards Studio sought above all to create a very calm and clear exhibition design language that would support visitors and respect the impact of the stories being told.

Graphic communication makes use of gauzy panels, suggesting transparency, set into rich timber frames, which talk of the weighty subject matter. The exhibition design features a progression of colour from darker tones of blue to lighter, warmer and more neutral colours, expressing an emotional shift as the exhibition progresses.

The other major creative feature is the use of textiles and embroidery to add a softer, more human and tactile aspect to help set the tone of the exhibition. Nissen Richards Studio liaised with The London College of Fashion to select a current student to work with on this. The collaboration between the design team and student Yi-Ching Wang – who had done a master’s thesis on this subject – sees fabric and thread used in abstract ways in the place of traditional graphic panels, with the with the IWM’s interpretative text printed onto canvas and then sewn into a fabric surrounding the panel, where the beautiful sewn line work expresses each room’s theme. Whilst the lines used are linear for room one, for example, they become tense and agitated for room two and more organic in room three.

This process allowed the design team to push the boundaries of interpretation to express ideas in more metaphorical ways. The work created through this collaboration adds a directly emotional aspect to the exhibition that speaks of the power of free expression and repair, as well as war’s chaos and the unravelling of social norms.