Client, Year

Baltimore Museum of Industry, 
2023

Services

Logo
Exhibition
Interpretive Graphics

Awards / Press

SEGD Merit Award, 2024
BmoreArt
CBS News
WBAL TV
Baltimore Fishbowl

Photo / Video

Vivian Marie Doering

Collective Action

A history of labor activism told through artifacts

Since its founding, Baltimore has been a center of labor activism, organization, and progress. By showcasing advocates’ words, slogans, and tools for advancement, the 2024 exhibit Collective Action at the Baltimore Museum of Industry analyzed how the current fight for a living wage, safe working conditions, better hours, and more equitable practices both relates to and builds upon the hard work done by previous generations of Baltimore’s unions.

At the entrance, a stark piece of unvarnished plywood displays the exhibit’s name with a punch of hand-painted letters for a do-it-yourself effect. The supplies’ simplicity is a deliberate choice to reflect the necessary, and often ingenious, resourcefulness of labor activists to draw attention to their cause. In the bottom right, a triptych of picket signs overlaps to complete the title. Once inside, the picket sign motif will continue to accompany visitors and deliver key information throughout the exhibition. 

The exhibit is, like its subject matter, focused on five themes: Wages, Equity, Power, Safety, and Change. Each section is anchored by a large wall mural, where compelling photography is rendered in true-to-life scale, allowing visitors to stand with the advocacy groups. Stylizing the imagery with a halftone pattern made it possible to scale low-quality and low-resolution photos captured by participants and observers, while the gradient backgrounds reflect each organization’s color scheme.

Layering picket signs in front of the murals breaks the barrier between the exhibit’s established narrative and the visitor’s current experience, shattering the illusion that this is a fight relegated to the past. Lined along the gallery walls, the signs are a vehicle for spotlighting the voices of many different workers, with each sign acting as a stand-in for a real individual. Elsewhere, simplified data graphics emphasize the stark realities of working in the U.S.

In the center stands an open-air structure designed to be practical, cost-effective, and striking. It houses a collection of union and activist ephemera that reinforces the idea of strength in numbers. Artifacts that couldn’t be included due to time and budget constraints were digitized, reproduced on recycled aluminum panels, and suspended in the structure with braided wire. The result is a three-dimensional collage of slogans, organizations, and artifacts that creates a resounding, self-contained rally.

As this was a temporary exhibition, the entire structure needed to be easily disassembled at the conclusion of the project. No glues, adhesives, or nails were used; instead, we implemented lumber at stock sizes and assembled it with removable fasteners so that all materials could be repurposed in the future. All graphics will also be recycled at the close of the exhibit.

A primer on unionization, affectionately named Unions 101, concluded the exhibit. It tracks the decline of unions across the country, despite the renewed need for workforce advocacy. Still, as Baltimore is home to the first Apple store and one of the first Starbucks to unionize, the city continues to create change for workers locally and nationally. The exhibit was a snapshot of this tension between immediate personal welfare and greater public discourse.

Stay in Touch

PO Box 50337, Balt., MD 21211

©2024 Ashton Design

Stay in Touch