Imperial War Museum North - Exhibitions

Exhibitions

Permanent exhibitions are housed in the museum's first-floor main gallery space within the earth shard. These consist of a chronological display which runs around the gallery's 200-metre (660 ft) perimeter and six thematic displays in "silos" within the space. As part of the earth shard, the 3,500-square-metre (38,000 sq ft) floor of the gallery is curved, gradually dropping away like the curvature of the Earth from a nominal "North Pole" near the gallery's entrance. Within this hall, described as cavernous and dramatic, a number of large artefacts are displayed; they include a Russian T-34 tank, a United States Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jet and a 13-pounder field gun which fired the British Army's first shot of the First World War. Around the gallery, a number of vertical mechanical conveyors called "timestacks" display selections of smaller artefacts, some of which can be handled by visitors.

In addition to the physical exhibits, the walls of the gallery space are used as screens for the projection of hourly audiovisual presentations called the Big Picture, which explore themes related to modern conflict. These presentations use up to 1,500 images from the Imperial War Museum's photograph archive and were originally projected from 60 synchronised slide projectors mounted throughout the space. In 2011 digital projectors were installed, allowing a greater degree of flexibility. The images are complemented by personal accounts from the museum's oral history sound archive. The Big Picture was devised after the reduction in the museum's budget forced the scrapping of the previous exhibition plan by designers DEGW and Amalgam.

Also within the earth shard, a separate gallery accommodates a programme of temporary exhibitions. These have included the Witness series of art exhibitions from the museum's collection, examining First and Second World War art, and the work of female war artists.

The WaterWay, a passageway linking the earth and water shards, is used for smaller art or photographic exhibitions, such as Ghislaine Howard's photojournalism-inspired painting series 365.

Outside the museum building, an ex-Iraqi Army T-55 tank was put on display at the main entrance in August 2008. This vehicle was captured by the Royal Engineers during the opening stages of the Iraq War in 2003. The spot had previously been occupied by an Iraqi ZSU-23-4 Shilka anti-aircraft gun. Captured by the Royal Artillery after the 1991 Gulf War, it was moved from Imperial War Museum Duxford and displayed to mark the museum's fifth anniversary in July 2007.