SFMOMA exhibition - CCA@100: Innovation by Design

March 2 - August 26, 2007

To celebrate the centenary of the California College of the Arts, envelope A+D was invited to design an exhibition to display more than 35 works by CCA faculty and alumni, showcasing the breadth of the school's interdisciplinary design programs.

Vitrines recycled from the museum's own storage rooms were set within a large, ark-like volume with a reflective inner surface to create a vessel that simultaneously isolates, collects and multiplies the objects contained within. The vitrines act as portals to the ark’s reflective interior, evoking the relation of individual works to the collective identity of the school. The unusual display system further suggests how the practice of exhibition design may open itself to reinvention. The ark probes a tension that is fundamental to how museums deal with storing and exhibiting objects: a tension between imperatives of protection, cataloguing, and control versus the need to expose, provide visual access, and create a coherent narrative by joining fragments together.