Making The Embrace

Client
MASS Design Group

Year
2023

Location
Boston, Massachusetts, 2024

Following the unveiling of The Embrace Plaza in the Boston Common, I partnered with MASS Design Group on an educational exhibit detailing the process of collaborating with artist Hank Willis Thomas and King Boston on the memorial to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King's legacy in Boston, hosted in MASS Design Group.

The exhibit opened to 100+ visitors and attracted several elementary school groups throughout its duration, galvanizing community enthusiasm for public history and the Kings' legacy.

Upon the much-anticipated unveiling of The Embrace Memorial on the Boston common, non-profits MASS Design Group and King Boston sought a way to capture the celebratory energy around the unveiling.

An exhibition in MASS’s office space was planned for that summer. This coincided with a desire among MASS principals to activate the office space as an educational, enriching environment welcoming to the public.

Budget for the project was tight, and the MASS office space was less than a year old, making the exhibition the first substantial activation of the space for the public. We were working with the constraints of the office environment for the first time, which meant new challenges were being surfaced in real time: for example, when the videography equipment was tested, the glass window panels behind the stage registered a glare. Designing while the plans for the panels were being designed, meaning I needed to adapt to shifting specifications.

Conscious of the high carbon footprint of conventional construction projects, we turned to adaptive reuse: the built components of the exhibition were made from the wood panels used during the construction of the plaza and assembly of the memorial statue. Given that we had a plotter printer in the office, the team produced the vinyl components of the exhibition in-house. I conducted quality assurance checks and coordinated across teams to ensure all components were produced, as well as to have the exhibition assembled. To solve for the glare behind the panelists, I designed a series of bespoke panels to the measurements of the window panels, which we mounted via adhesive vinyl.

I was responsible for the design of the exhibition layout, the backdrop to the panelists, and both synchronous and asynchronous coordination with local and remote collaborators to execute the exhibition, as well as marketing materials. The final deliverables were a wordmark and visual identity, an in-house exhibition, a stage backdrop, digital and print materials, including postcards and stickers.

The event opened to a full house, hosting upwards of 150 visitors, leading to a conversion from cultural excitement to financial giving for the public-interest design firm. It also served educational purpose, as roughly half a dozen Boston elementary schools toured the exhibition following its opening.

When I explain to people in different disciplines that graphic design is the mediation between clear, compelling communication and material constraints, this is the project that comes to mind.

It was a masterclass in scrappy resourcefulness, adaptive reuse, and nimble coordination among team members to ensure a compelling product with time and budget constraints.

Contact

Interested in collaborating? Marisol is available for full-time and freelance work! Résumé and CV available upon request.

andmunstudio@gmail.com
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