Our Portfolio: Non-Profit Exhibits
Dismal Swamp Visitor Center
SOUTH MILLS, NC
Directing the visitor experience within a swamp environment, with heat, humidity, and swarms of biting insects presents a formidable challenge. Wiant Design Works helped park staff create an exhibit program to provide educational experiences that appeal to multiple learning styles. Richly detailed graphics and scenic environments featuring many interactive displays maximize the visitor experience for the modestly sized exhibit hall and lobby.
A spiraling central wall was created in the exhibit hall to capture and chronicle the extensive intermingled stories of human and natural history. As visitors travel through the space, the wall spirals down, signaling the dwindling size of the forests. As visitors continue the journey, the wall rises, and exhibits focus on the parks' mission of wetland preservation.
Romare Bearden
PITTSBURGH, PA
From Process to Print: Graphic Works by Romare Bearden was a national traveling exhibition featuring the artwork of a prominent African American painter and printmaker. This was the first major art exhibition at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture. It was displayed in a gallery designed for a prior, more permanent one.
The intent was to heighten awareness of the artist but also to highlight the Center’s focus on the Visual Arts through an innovative, engaging, and attractive arrangement of the works on exhibit. This exhibit provided a unique and immersive visitor experience where viewers could understand the breadth of work created by the artist in a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere that respectfully elevated both the art and the artist.
John P. Murtha Center for Public Service
JOHNSTOWN PA
Wiant Design Works was asked to design an exhibit for a new facility built on the Pitt Johnston campus to commemorate John P. Murtha and over three decades that he dedicated to public service. Completed in 2016, the exhibit centers on formative periods of the late congressman’s life. The project began with interviews with family and colleagues to ensure we included aspects and events of his life and career that most impacted Johnstown, our Nation, and the World. Joyce Murtha, Mr. Murtha’s spouse, and the University of Pittsburgh Archives were pivotal in gathering artifacts and images that tell these stories. Working with Cecile Shellman Consulting to compile and complete the research, we created an exhibit plan and wrote text to complete stories surrounding a vast collection of events and artifacts.
The exhibit features personal family heirlooms from Murtha’s childhood, military uniforms, medals and awards, news articles, and congressional papers, along with bills proposed and passed to personal letters from constituents both critical of and praising his stances on legislative issues and gifts from political allies, friends and national leaders from around the world. The exhibit unfolds throughout the entrance and first floor of the building. In addition, a series of graphic rail panels and custom-designed display cases house hundreds of artifacts, news articles, and stories detailing a life of service to The United States of America and, most certainly, to Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Glamazonia
PITTSBURGH, PA
FashionAFRICANA celebrates the beauty and diversity of the African Diaspora through Design, Dance, Music, and curated exhibitions. Wiant Design Works was hired to lead a team to plan, design, fabricate, and install an art exhibition and to help design a space plan for an opening reception for Fashion AFRICANA’s 2013 season. The art exhibition, titled Glamazonia, featured photographs of Mario Epanya showcasing Black women with African-inspired hairstyles, garments, and accessories.
Wiant Design Works created a clean, elegant environment that spoke to the FashionAFRICANA brand while celebrating Epanya’s work testifying to the beauty of African women. A selection of photographs was chosen and arranged to complement the theme and messaging and fit within the small but unique exhibit gallery.
Hammocks Beach Visitor Center
SWANSBORO, NC
The exhibits at Hammocks Beach Visitor Center communicate human histories, weather, and environmental issues impacting animal and plant communities along the coast of North Carolina.
To begin, Wiant Design Works conducted stakeholder research to better understand the Park’s educational goals, programs, and potential visitorship.
This research informed the creation of the exhibit program and interpretive themes explored throughout the visitor center and park grounds. To implement the park’s vision for the exhibit hall, trusted creative partners joined the design team. As a result, custom-built dioramas and painted murals were created to complement interpretive graphics, artifacts, exhibit structures, and interactives.
Central Pennsylvania Visitor Center
STATE COLLEGE, PA
Updating existing exhibit spaces pose many challenges. The Central Pennsylvania Convention & Visitors Bureau’s primary design objectives were for their new exhibits to reflect current branding strategies and to repurpose existing structures. The updated space highlights significant tourist attractions and local activities with a lively, open, inviting floor plan.
A touchscreen user interface and large floor map help visitors locate area attractions. In addition, users can tag destinations and print personalized itineraries that include maps, short descriptions, and contact information for their chosen attractions.
Funky Turns 40
Pittsburgh, PA
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust asked Wiant Design Works to assist in designing a traveling exhibit featuring objects from The Museum of Un-Cut Funk, titled “Funky Turns 40”.
Installed at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, this exhibit included a retrospective of cartoon animation art featuring black characters that represent some of the first positive images of black people and culture in America and are an important contribution to the aesthetic of 70s pop culture. So, naturally, the look and feel of the exhibit graphics referenced this time period.
Along with videos of many of the cartoon series—shown on vintage television sets—and over 70 framed original animation cells and drawings from cartoon series, a highlight of the exhibit was the inclusion of a recently assembled collection
of memorabilia that would be displayed for the first time. Items included a massive variety of games, toys, action figures, LPs and 45s, books and magazines, dishware, and lunch boxes.
Wiant Design Works sourced cases, created labels, and curated the contents, theme, and placement of items in cases that were placed throughout the gallery.
Funky Turns 40 is simply a fantastic time capsule of images and ephemera from a time that is near and dear to many. This project was a joy to be a part of. Working with a creative team comprised of members from the Cultural Trust’s administrative staff, curators from the Museum of Un-Cut Funk, and August Wilson staff, we completed the project in just six weeks.
