Designing Change: Unlearning and Relearning SEGD’s Upcoming “Exhibition + Experience” Event

  1. An ambassador on an iPad waits to give a museum visitor a lesson in her native language. Photo credit: Planet Word

  2. Photo credit: Planet Word

  3. People begin their undercover mission in the Spies and Spy Masters Gallery where theatrical vignettes and walls of trade tools bring human intelligence stories to life.

  4. G&A created this “Red-Teaming” interactive to recreate the CIA’s process of pinpointing Osama bin Laden’s hiding place.

  5. Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Merit Award 2017

  6. Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Merit Award 2017

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On August 4 & 5th, 2021, SEGD will bring together designers to participate in a comprehensive virtual event dedicated to exhibition and experience design. “Designing Change: Unlearning + Relearning” will focus on we design change in our methodologies while examining how designers, storytellers and creators are reimagining their design practices.

Over the past 18 months, SEGD members have experienced an unprecedented and accelerated change in the world and in their practices. Last year, at the 2020 Exhibition + Experience month long symposium, participants discussed how to harness creativity to forge a path forward—and how to use design to create a more equitable future for everyone. This August, participants in the 2021 E+E virtual event will look back on our progress and begin to concretize some of the lessons learned and new modes of working.

This August’s E+E symposium will feature a line-up of thought leaders and designers from around the world, including SEGD global design award winners. Symposium participants will discuss case studies in progress and also share what they’ve learned about experiential design which engages people in conversations around race, equity, sustainability and future thinking.

“As we are re-entering society, how do we as designers develop design that helps all of us engage with each other in more helpful, authentic and productive ways after much time in isolation while confronting our own shifts in perspectives?” asks L’Rai Arthur-Mensah, Project Director with Local Projects.

To that end, the Unlearning + Relearning event will bring together an interdisciplinary design community that is building new ways of working and creating more inclusive communities, while inviting other voices into the design process.

“We have to keep the momentum going,” says event co-chairperson Aki Carpenter and Principal and the Director of Social Projects at Ralph Appelbaum Associates. “It is important for us all to continue to think critically about what we need to unlearn and what we need to relearn.” 

Unlearning + Relearning kicks off Wednesday, August 4, with VIP in-person tours—in Washington, DC, and in partner SEGD Chapter Cities—that give attendees a behind-the-scenes view of the most highly anticipated exhibitions and interactive installations of 2020 and 2021, including the acclaimed Planet Word, the National Museum of the U.S. Army and the International Spy Museum.

Thursday, August 5, begins the virtual event with a facilitated design and journaling exercise that will prime the SEGD community for the discussions ahead.

Finally, it wouldn’t be an SEGD event without the opportunity to network and interface with members of our warm and talented community. The DC chapter will host a happy hour event for local participants to get to know each other.