Much of design is about finding equilibrium.
When designing this show — both in terms of content and experience — there were a lot of different elements and ideas we needed to balance: public art, inspiring ideas, student participation, the idea of placemaking and community pride, the precedent already set by previous Great Ideas of Humanity exhibitions, and more. How can we combine all these different ideas into a single, cohesive concept?
First, we had to determine how to represent these ideas in the content of the show. We decided to have the students create flags, a traditional symbol of marking place. Those flags would be created in two layers: a base layer that consisted of an abstract collage using shapes pulled from the two murals we chose to represent in the show — Kerry James Marshall’s Rush More and the mosaics on the exterior of Cooper Dual Language Academy — and inspired by a quote from one of the figures featured in each mural; and a top layer that consisted of a blind contour drawing depicting something (or the many things) each student liked most about their community. The activity melded together opposing ideas of abstract and representational, organic and geometric, and self and other.
We brought the same effort to find commonalities between very different things into the gallery as well. We chose exhibition colors that were common between both murals: a rich blue, bright red, vibrant yellow, and architectural silver. We reproduced large-scale images of those murals on 10’ x 24’ free-standing walls to reference the experience one would have when standing in front of them in person. Those walls were then set at an angle to create a winding visitor experience not unlike the experience of traversing Chicago on foot. Finally, we scattered abstract shapes across the gallery walls, which gain relevance for those who find them in their original home within the murals.
