The Legacy Museum
One of the highest privileges of my career has been to work with the Equal Justice Initiative to craft the harrowing story of racial oppression in the U.S. into the first museum of its kind. I jumped at the opportunity because I knew I had a lot to learn and I wanted to become a better citizen.
EJI and its director Bryan Stevenson brought a clear vision: draw a single throughline from enslavement, through racial terror lynchings and Jim Crow-era segregation, to the contemporary machine of mass incarceration.
On the Local Projects multi-disciplinary team, I served as lead visual experience designer on the project from strategy through installation, overseeing all aspects of design and production.
2015–2018
____________
CLIENT
Equal Justice Initiative
____________
CREATED WITH
Jake Barton · Creative direction
Robin Reid · Project management
Anthony Dong · 3D design, Construction administration
Albane Jerphanion · Visual experience design
Charlotte Harris · Project coordination
Elle Barriga · Art direction
Keeli Shaw · Project management (media)
Matt Lohmann · Front-end development
Avi Grayson · Back-end
Ethan Holda · Back-end development
Roger Arnold · Content development
Dwayne Nash · Content research
Katie Ahern - Strategy
McKenna Cole · Production design
Anthony Roy · Production design
Nico Guillin · 3D design
Nic Sanchez · Visual experience design
at Local Projects
____________
press
New York Times review and report
60 Minutes episode with Oprah
New Yorker review
Washington Post op-ed
New York Times op-ed
New York Times report of first year impact
We grounded the exhibition in the site’s history as a former slave warehouse to emphasize the local, immediately accessible presence of the narrative. One of my very first concepts in 2015 was to paint a statement directly on the raw interior wall. I then worked closely with EJI over many months to develop two maps showing Montgomery’s prominence in (and dependence on) the United States slave trade.
It became clear early on that telling the four chapters of history in a single exhibition space would allow visitors to feel the progression in their bodies, moving seamlessly from one era to the next, with sight lines through the entire space. The Slavery Evolved wall lays out the narrative along the full length of the exhibition space in a way that the haunting connections cannot be missed.
