Pacific Worlds

MY ROLE:
As the Experience Developer on this project, I worked in deep partnership with the curator, designer, and representatives of the Bay Area Pacific Islander community to translate content into experiences for visitors. 

• I DIRECTED A COMMUNITY TASK FORCE in a collaborative year-long process, privileging stories told from Pacific Islanders’ perspectives over the museum perspective—thus sharing interpretive authority. 

• I CO-CREATED EXHIBIT COMPONENTS with task force members, formalizing community engagement practices based on a system that scales participation.

• I LED THE INTERPRETIVE PLANNING process through Concept, Design Development, and Implementation phases.

• I OUTLINED THE LABEL HIERARCHY, DRAFTED, REVISED, AND EDITED ALL EXHIBITION TEXT to visitor-friendly standards. 

• I DESIGNED EXHIBITION FLOW FOR VISITORS, OBJECT GROUPINGS, THEMATIC SECTIONS, AND SELECTED OBJECTS in collaboration with the designer and curator.

• I PROTOTYPED AND DEVELOPED INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES in collaboration with team and community task force

• I WROTE A CASE STUDY about this project for the MASS Action Toolkit (Chapter 6: Sharing Authority: Creating Content and Experiences; p.105).

This temporary exhibition at The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) was on view in 2016.  

By turning the familiar idea of California as the western frontier on its head and re-positioning the state as “the East Coast of the Pacific,” Pacific Worlds wove together 236 objects and ephemera from the Oakland Museum of California’s collections along with contemporary California Pacific Islander artwork and community voices. Through the exhibition, visitors experienced how Pacific Islanders in California today maintain cultural practices including dance and music, food, fiber arts, tattooing, surfing, and other practices.