EXPANDING HORIZONS: THE EVOLVING CHARACTER OF NATION

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

Expanding Horizons: The Evolving Character of a Nation was a year-long experimental exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art. The exhibition displayed the TMA’s American art collection in a way that provokes questions about how American history is told through objects and actively invites visitor feedback through both analog and digital interactives. By placing works in conversation with each other rather than chronologically, the exhibition explores themes that are often overlooked and confronts myths that have been perpetuated by the “conventional” telling of American history. Through clear spatial organization, the design of the space enables visitors to intuit the relationships among disparate objects. Two-sided cases along the long freestanding walls in the center of the gallery create opportunities for visual connections among objects as well as to other visitors in the gallery. Although the gallery was completely transformed, most of the build-out in the gallery was accomplished through the reuse of existing wall modules and existing casework in the Museum’s inventory.