Designing “A Path Appears” at the Skirball Cultural Center

A museum exhibition that doubles as a vehicle for social change, A Path Appears: Actions for A Better World, was on view at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles from late 2015 to early 2016. C&G Partners was given the uplifting task of creating the interactive exhibition environment—allowing us to design for activist culture.

Both the exhibition and the book from which it was inspired, also titled A Path Appears, written by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, provide a roadmap for becoming conscience global citizens. The exhibition and ActionLab, a website project that uses storytelling to promote human rights, lets visitors take practical steps towards social change.

In collaboration with the Los Angeles-based wHY Architecture and Cinnabar fabricators, C&G Partners developed physical points of learning inside interactive pavilions made from salvaged materials that ranged from recycled CDs and threadbare auto tires to cardboard pieces and bubble wrap. The installations illustrated four critical humanitarian issues—education, health, jobs, and empowerment—and the grassroots organizations providing creative solutions to the problem. Unlike traditional exhibits, visitors had the opportunity to explore and touch a selection of objects creating a theatrical and experimental atmosphere.

Our team created a manifesto that guided design throughout the fast-moving project: it dictates that anyone can make these unusual enclosures and installations using recycled materials and local urban waste. Rather than traveling physically, the completed exhibition was distributed as a set of open-source instructions to be rebuilt anywhere, anytime.

The project appeared in the press a number of times during its run:

KCRW, Design & Architecture, November 18, 2015
“Turning inspiration into action at the Skirball”
Jewish Journal, November 15, 2015
“New Skirball exhibition channels the power of you”
Los Angeles Times, September 18, 2015
“Skirball museum exhibition will issue a call to grass-roots social action“