Words are Pictures are Words

Exhibition Design, Writing

/ 2012
Words are Pictures are Words installation at the Baltimore Musdeum of Art

A Baltimore Museum of Art space that explores text in contemporary art


We worked with the Baltimore Museum of Art to create this educational space in the museum’s contemporary wing. Our immersive, textual environment turned the gallery into a room-size infographic with original text-based pieces and an activity station where museum visitors could create their own typographic artworks. A monitor installed on the opposite wall gave visitors an opportunity to connect ideas in the room with text-based works from the BMA’s collection.

Words are Pictures are Words typographic text-based art installation at the Baltimore Museum of Art, detail of several pieces the play with space and context.
Museum visitors working on text-based art stamping and design activities
Photo by Christopher Myers

Text becomes immersive, playful, and interactive

Hung throughout the museum gallery, we made more than a dozen pieces that embody different approaches to text-based art. Each piece uses the same language — “Words are Pictures are Words” — to illustrate how physical, stylistic, and cultural context changes the meaning or perception of language.

Captions extend across a background of floor-to-ceiling wall lettering. The captions illuminate key points about each piece and turn the space into an immersive, room-size infographic. Custom frames mimic transit advertising, store signage, and even extend onto the gallery’s floor plane.

We also collaborated with the BMA’s education department to develop concepts for visitor activities that allow museum visitors to explore the theme of text-based art and create their own designs, ranging from concrete poetry and wordplay with a set of pre-made stamps to illustrated alphabets and drawings that incorporate typography.

A museum visitor working on text-based art in the educational space
text-based art by museum visitors

Project team: Bruce Willen, Nolen Strals, Christian Mortlock, Wesley Stuckey
Collaborators: Baltimore Museum of Art Exhibitions

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