Project: Deconstructing the Divides

In the fall of 2017, University of Missouri-Kansas City English Professor Dr. Jane Greer invited me to serve as a consultant and designer for an exhibit that her undergraduate rhetoric class was planning to create.

Titled Deconstructing the Divides: Rhetorical Activism in Kansas City, the exhibit highlighted the role of local activists who used a variety of rhetorical forms–protest, language composition, education, and others–to fight for equality in Kansas City.

As consultant, I gave a guest lecture on public history and exhibit writing and design for Dr. Greer’s class. I also returned twice to present draft designs of the exhibit panels, encouraging students to think through the ways that words and designs together helped to communicate history.

When the class was complete, I worked with Dr. Greer on a final round of edits to the panel text, securing image permissions, and designing the final panels. Printed on 12 freestanding, retractable panels, the exhibit was displayed at the 2018 Conference on College Composition and Communication, held in Kansas City. Additionally, the Black Archives of Mid-America hosted the exhibit after a representative saw it at the conference. An article by Dr. Greer and two of her students on the exhibit creation experience is under review at the journal College English.