Refugee Life Exhibit

"Torn From Home," the exhibit on refugee life developed at the Lied Discovery Children's Museum, opened last week, and I'm pleased to have developed a StoryKiosk installation for this groundbreaking exhibit. Visitors experience walking through a refugee camp, and at the end they record their reflections on the experience.

It is a challenging topic: visitors generally come to museums to learn and enjoy their time together in exhibits, so an exhibit on refugee life would seem from the start to be at odds with that experience. But the exhibit manages to strike a masterful balance between providing a novel experience and introducing a topic of international concern. Families can create a shelter together: an intriguing challenge that is engaging, and at the same unsettling as you imagine families living in this structure. The display of toys created by kids in refugee camps is inspiring as you see the creativity that went into their creation and disturbing as you imagine the circumstance of the child who created the toy.

Thanks and appreciation to Stacey Mann, Elaine Bole, and the team at Lied who helped create the exhibit. More info here, and at the Website we developed for the exhibit.