BMORE Than The Story Exhibit

My Role 

My role in this exhibit was Co-Creative Director. As part of this position, I was a key player in many of the major decisions that went into the exhibit, as well as creating the catalog and website.

This project was such a rewarding experience for me and really opened my eyes to the power of design. 

About the Exhibit

As part of my Social Design course, my senior design class collaborated with a Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts (AFSIVA), a high school a block away from the the unrest that occurred in Baltimore last April. We worked together in order to tell the story from the youth perspective. 

The exhibit had three major themes that high school students wanted to address. The first was constant surveillance. The students from AFSIVA described that they felt like the helicopters circling their neighborhood reminded them of vultures circling their prey. We took this idea and created vultures with cameras as heads that watch visitors while in the space. The live footage is actually shown on a monitor in the exhibit. We wanted to make sure that the vultures had a menacing feeling that invades the visitors space, much like the constant surveillance does to the youth in the community. 

The next section focused on the media portrayal of the uprisings and the community in general. We expressed this problem by showing quotes of major political or media figures, and then allowing visitor to shine a black light over the quotes to reveal edits the students have made to change he narrative.

The last major issue the students wanted to address was victims of police brutality. We created a timeline that showed major historical events that were happening throughout the decades as well as a list of victims of police brutality. Unfortunately, this has been an issue for way too long and many times goes unrecorded. In order to complete the list, we included hooks on the wall to allow people to add names of people they know who were victims. The design of the timeline was based on one of my infographics in a previous project that you can view here. 

Outcome

At the exhibit opening we attracted over 250 guests that came to support our exhibit. We were even able to gain some media attention. I was lucky enough to be a part of a few of the interviews. 

Here is some of the media coverage the exhibit attracted:

South African Broadcasting Cooperation: 
https://youtu.be/O0sj-FlJtJA

WBAL:
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/students-voice-feelings-on-unrest-in-new-exhibit/39008652

Fox45:
http://foxbaltimore.com/morning/bmore-than-the-story-exhibit

Terp Magazine:
http://terp.umd.edu/reclaiming-their-voices/#.VzpNwhWDGkp

Baltimore Sun:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bal-lewis-museum-offers-special-programs-for-anniversary-of-baltimore-uprising-20160316-story.html

AFRO: 
http://www.afro.com/using-art-to-mark-the-anniversary-of-baltimores-uprising/ 

Baltimore citybizlist:
 http://baltimore.citybizlist.com/article/334968/reginald-f-lewis-museum-to-feature-special-programming-for-anniversary-of-baltimore-uprising

The Diamondback:
 http://www.diamondbackonline.com/news/umd-responds-to-baltimore-unrest-with-collaborative-art-exhibit/article_ae71c578-670d-11e5-9227-7396f8b3bb4e.html

The first eight photos are courtesy of Mike Morgan at mikemorganphoto.com