Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA

Boston’s Apollo Interactive Gallery

Services

+ Gallery Design

+ Interactive and Experiential Design

How do museums invite active participation and create space for multiple perspectives?

As part of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s special exhibition Boston’s Apollo: Thomas McKeller and John Singer Sargent, visitors can share important untold stories, like Thomas McKeller’s story, in an interactive gallery designed by the Studio. Interactives like this allow museums to tell broader stories that reflect the perspectives and lived experiences of us all.

Design Notes

The roundels and circular canvases of John Singer Sargent’s rotunda murals at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (and highlighted in the Boston’s Apollo exhibition) serve as a jumping off point for this project’s gallery design aesthetic. The repeated circular motif allows for overall cohesiveness within the interactive gallery and the broader exhibition.

The bi-level, accessible drawing bar enables all audiences to engage with exhibition themes and ideas through writing and sketching and invites differing levels of engagement with seated and standing options.

Finally, the circular, personal response board accommodates responses from multiple visitors and creates space for abundant perspectives, voices, and reactions.