Listen to the audio version below:

We created a multisensory exhibit called Founding Fossils that displays content in both visual and tactile modes. The exhibit tells a complex story that involves art, history, science, and technology.

Founding Fossils explains the surprising role that archaeology played in the understanding of species extinction in America as the United States became an independent country. The Comte de Buffon was a French naturalist who thought that animals living in America were smaller and weaker than European animals. The founding fathers, including Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington, studied large fossils that were discovered in Kentucky, New York, and Virginia to counter that idea.

In 2021, Maggie Colangelo and archaeologist, Dr. Bernard Means published a comic book called Founding Monsters that tells this story. The Founding Fossils exhibition reproduces the artwork and the fossils in a 3D-printed format so that they can be touched.

Anna Carter sculpted people and objects that appear in the Founding Monsters comics, making the 2-dimensional drawings into a 3-dimensional tactile experience. She created the sculptures with modelling clay, and these were 3D-printed and painted for the exhibit. 

We designed the Founding Fossils Exhibit to be accessible allowing visitors to explore the art in multisensory ways. The exhibit includes framed pictures and tactile objects with both print and braille labels. QR-codes can be scanned to play an audio tour on a personal mobile device.

I enjoy developing multisensory exhibits that have visual, tactile, and audio components. I invite you to learn more about working with me to create multisensory experiences that are accessible to everyone. 

Founding Fossils is on view from May to December 2024 at the Peale Museum, 225 Holiday Street, Baltimore Maryland.