Storytelling

Stories told in any medium

Exhibit for Bowie State University's 150th Anniversary

Bowie State University celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2015. My challenge was to create an exhibit that told the University’s history, was compelling, easy to update, portable, and could be reconfigured for different venues.

I created a modular design with eight curved stands. Each stand presented a period of the university’s history on a mylar panel. The exhibit appeared in the Miller Senate Building in Annapolis, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, and the Gaylord Convention Center in National Harbor. Its final home was in Bowie State’s visitors center.

In addition to designing the stands, I wrote the first three panels, starting with its founding in 1865. Bowie State was created as a normal school freed slaves after the Civil War. The first in the state of Maryland. During its formative years, much of the institution's archives had been lost to fires. I had to pull its early history from annual reports and contemporary African American periodicals.