Understanding Community Partner Experiences with the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum’s “To Live and Breathe” Exhibition
Client: Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum | Location: Washington, DC
We explored and documented community partner experiences with the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum’s exhibition on women leaders in environmental justice.
OVERVIEW
Kera Collective was contracted by the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum to evaluate its environmental justice exhibition, To Live and Breathe, Women and Environmental Justice in Washington DC. The exhibition, curated by Dr. Rachel F. Seidman, built on the museum’s long-standing history with environmental justice issues; it aimed to “present on-the-ground, tangible stories from local community members and, through interactives, encourage visitors to envision their own connection to environmental justice.”
As part of a summative evaluation of the exhibition, we conducted interviews with community partners (individuals featured in the exhibition or involved in the exhibition planning process). These interviews aimed to document the exhibition’s collaboration process and gather community partners’ feedback on the museum’s collaborative efforts and resulting exhibition.
APPROACH
Since the exhibition details community stories, we interviewed 11 community partners to explore their feelings about and reactions to the exhibition and its development. Interviews were approximately 30 minutes in length and community partners were gifted a $50 gift card for their time.
CLIENT TAKEAWAYS
Overall, the community partner interviews documented the emotional and communal significance of the exhibition for community partners (who were often local environmental leaders) and underlined the importance of community involvement in the exhibition planning process—a key component of ACM’s mission as a community museum.
The final exhibition was very moving for community partners—it was meaningful to have their work and their fellow leaders’ environmental justice efforts showcased and honored in a community space and the Smithsonian Institution, especially when their work is often left unrecognized. Moreover, most said the exhibition reflects their contributions and highlighted local women of color environmental justice leaders effectively. In fact, the exhibition itself became an opportunity for reflection, motivation, and recognition for some community partners. For example, community partners said that environmental justice advocacy can be taxing, heavy, stressful, and continuous—thus, there is often little time to reflect or slow down. Yet, with the exhibition, they described feeling “empowered,” “encouraged,” and “uplifted.”
Interviews showed that there were several strengths to the exhibition’s collaborative process—in particular, the collaborative process was well-organized and communicative, and the curator and staff were considerate, receptive, and flexible. At the same time, we found a few opportunities for growth, with some partners wanting more involvement in the exhibition’s interpretation process and a few partners desiring clearer expectations at the beginning of the collaborative process and a meeting marking the culmination of their collaborative work together (before the exhibition’s opening night).
