Exhibition Design
Skin & Substrate Exhibit
Skin & Substrate Exhibit
Curated an interactive and immersive experience highlighting the human experience through the exploration of palimpsests.
Curated an interactive and immersive experience highlighting the human experience through the exploration of palimpsests.
Year
2026
Year
2026
Year
2026
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Category
Exhibition Design
Category
Exhibition Design
Category
Exhibition Design
Project Duration
6 months
Project Duration
6 months
Project Duration
6 months
Intro
Palimpsests have always fascinated me—the idea that meaning lives in layers, that what we see is never the complete story. Skin & Substrate is an interactive exhibition exploring this concept through the human experience. The exhibition dissects palimpsests and asks why their layered nature is crucial for how we understand design, language, and ultimately, ourselves. Broken into three distinct parts—Expand, Interact, and Reflect—the exhibition invites visitors to engage with the palimpsest attitude as both a design method and a way of being human.
Objective
Design an interactive exhibition that examines palimpsests and their influence on how we think and communicate. The goal was to create an experience that reveals the multidimensional nature of language, design, and human understanding while making the abstract concept of layering tangible and meaningful to visitors.
Challenge
Translating an academic and abstract concept—the palimpsest—into an immersive, accessible experience required balancing intellectual depth with visceral engagement. The challenge was to avoid creating something overly theoretical while ensuring the exhibition didn't oversimplify the complexity of layered meaning. We needed to guide visitors through understanding palimpsests as both a historical artifact and a living principle that shapes how we communicate and interpret the world.
Result
The exhibition ran from May 14, 2025 through May 20th. With a plan to allow visitors to change the exhibition as they traveled through, the space successfully bridged theory and experience, allowing visitors to move through the three phases and discover how palimpsests function in their own lives. Through interactive components and thoughtful spatial design—Skin & Substrate transformed an esoteric concept into a universal insight about how meaning accumulates, transforms, and persists over time. The experience affirmed that understanding our layered nature is essential to designing meaningfully for humanity.
I wrote a blog post about this project and the challenges I faced when designing for people. Read it here!
Latest Projects
Exhibition Design
Skin & Substrate Exhibit
Skin & Substrate Exhibit
Curated an interactive and immersive experience highlighting the human experience through the exploration of palimpsests.
Curated an interactive and immersive experience highlighting the human experience through the exploration of palimpsests.
Year
2026
Year
2026
Year
2026
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Category
Exhibition Design
Category
Exhibition Design
Category
Exhibition Design
Project Duration
6 months
Project Duration
6 months
Project Duration
6 months
Intro
Palimpsests have always fascinated me—the idea that meaning lives in layers, that what we see is never the complete story. Skin & Substrate is an interactive exhibition exploring this concept through the human experience. The exhibition dissects palimpsests and asks why their layered nature is crucial for how we understand design, language, and ultimately, ourselves. Broken into three distinct parts—Expand, Interact, and Reflect—the exhibition invites visitors to engage with the palimpsest attitude as both a design method and a way of being human.
Objective
Design an interactive exhibition that examines palimpsests and their influence on how we think and communicate. The goal was to create an experience that reveals the multidimensional nature of language, design, and human understanding while making the abstract concept of layering tangible and meaningful to visitors.
Challenge
Translating an academic and abstract concept—the palimpsest—into an immersive, accessible experience required balancing intellectual depth with visceral engagement. The challenge was to avoid creating something overly theoretical while ensuring the exhibition didn't oversimplify the complexity of layered meaning. We needed to guide visitors through understanding palimpsests as both a historical artifact and a living principle that shapes how we communicate and interpret the world.
Result
The exhibition ran from May 14, 2025 through May 20th. With a plan to allow visitors to change the exhibition as they traveled through, the space successfully bridged theory and experience, allowing visitors to move through the three phases and discover how palimpsests function in their own lives. Through interactive components and thoughtful spatial design—Skin & Substrate transformed an esoteric concept into a universal insight about how meaning accumulates, transforms, and persists over time. The experience affirmed that understanding our layered nature is essential to designing meaningfully for humanity.
I wrote a blog post about this project and the challenges I faced when designing for people. Read it here!
Latest Projects
Exhibition Design
Skin & Substrate Exhibit
Skin & Substrate Exhibit
Curated an interactive and immersive experience highlighting the human experience through the exploration of palimpsests.
Curated an interactive and immersive experience highlighting the human experience through the exploration of palimpsests.
Year
2026
Year
2026
Year
2026
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Collaborators
Julia Alderman, Elisabeth Honey, Maxine Sizemore, Ellie Bodeman, Darcy Bailey
Category
Exhibition Design
Category
Exhibition Design
Category
Exhibition Design
Project Duration
6 months
Project Duration
6 months
Project Duration
6 months
Intro
Palimpsests have always fascinated me—the idea that meaning lives in layers, that what we see is never the complete story. Skin & Substrate is an interactive exhibition exploring this concept through the human experience. The exhibition dissects palimpsests and asks why their layered nature is crucial for how we understand design, language, and ultimately, ourselves. Broken into three distinct parts—Expand, Interact, and Reflect—the exhibition invites visitors to engage with the palimpsest attitude as both a design method and a way of being human.
Objective
Design an interactive exhibition that examines palimpsests and their influence on how we think and communicate. The goal was to create an experience that reveals the multidimensional nature of language, design, and human understanding while making the abstract concept of layering tangible and meaningful to visitors.
Challenge
Translating an academic and abstract concept—the palimpsest—into an immersive, accessible experience required balancing intellectual depth with visceral engagement. The challenge was to avoid creating something overly theoretical while ensuring the exhibition didn't oversimplify the complexity of layered meaning. We needed to guide visitors through understanding palimpsests as both a historical artifact and a living principle that shapes how we communicate and interpret the world.
Result
The exhibition ran from May 14, 2025 through May 20th. With a plan to allow visitors to change the exhibition as they traveled through, the space successfully bridged theory and experience, allowing visitors to move through the three phases and discover how palimpsests function in their own lives. Through interactive components and thoughtful spatial design—Skin & Substrate transformed an esoteric concept into a universal insight about how meaning accumulates, transforms, and persists over time. The experience affirmed that understanding our layered nature is essential to designing meaningfully for humanity.
I wrote a blog post about this project and the challenges I faced when designing for people. Read it here!