Wax is an extensible workflow for producing scholarly exhibitions with minimal computing principles. It’s comprised of: a few Ruby gems for processing image data and associated metadata (wax_tasks, wax_iiif), a Jekyll theme (wax_theme), and documentation for creating, deploying, and maintaining digital exhibitions.

The exhibition sites created by Wax are static. This means they consist of flat HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files that don’t need to communicate in a complex way back to a server. This makes them cheaper, safer, and generally easier to maintain—as long as you’re willing to learn some new skills.