The Recording Britain exhibition was a collection of watercolours and drawings depicting the changing face of Britain during the Second World War. This was a touring exhibition organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, showing in the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield from 3rd April to 2nd November 2014. This was the first iBeacon deployment in the UK in a gallery.

The app provided content that helped convey a sense of what Britain was like at the time the paintings were created. It contained wonderful videos from British Pathé as well as readings of John Betjeman poems.

Recording Britain app

The exhibition was in a single room (approx. 22m x 14m), which contained some temporary (hollow) walls that were about 2m high. These are the blue rectangles marked on the plan.

The exhibition was split into three themed zones:

  • Old England
  • The humble landscape
  • Defending rural Britain.

By careful positioning of multiple iBeacons we were able to make the app detect which zone the user was on, and show relevant content.

Floor plan of the Recording Britain exhibition