People, Place, and Influence: The Collection at 100
Design Team: Xiaoxiao Guo, Olivia de Salve VilledieuPress: “It's a really cool, idiosyncratic collection where we have photography and decorative arts, and theatrical costume and fashion. We have a huge theater collection. We have toys, we have dolls, we have dollhouses, we have a firetruck. One of the things we want people to come away from with this exhibition is an appreciation for what it means to collect around a city and a city like New York City.” WNYC
When designing this exhibition, I used spatial design and tactile interactives to help visitors navigate and interpret the Museum’s vast and varied collection, built over more than a century. Using color and architectural motifs to create distinctive zones within the gallery, I was able to delineate the space and reflect different thematic groupings. An iPad station allowed visitors to curate their own mini-exhibitions, deepening their understanding of the collection through active participation. In addition, a simple, yet effective interactive element—hands on drawers that pulled out to reveal touchable material samples, highlights from our archive, and tools used by museum staff to care for objects—grounded the space and encouraged a layered, intuitive experience that invited both reflection and discovery.