Past Exhibits Archives - Gates Discovery Center

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Our past exhibits highlight connections between a variety of issues related to the work of the Gates Foundation, its partners, and the Seattle community. We partner with museums and organizations such as the American Museum of Natural History and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum to showcase relevant topics, build awareness of global and local issues, and inspire action.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? STORIES FROM A TRANSFORMING WORLD

We are living through great change.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, communities have come together in astonishing and inspiring ways. In March 2020, the Discovery Center partnered with the South Seattle Emerald to reach out to local communities to ask, “How are you dealing with the pandemic?” Answers came in the form of stories, recordings, and photographs. This collection inspired the online exhibition Enduring COVID-19: Stories from our Transforming World,

As the pandemic wears on, it has affected more lives than we ever imagined—and the stories we began collecting have grown into the exhibition you see now. This exhibition explored the collective needs that have arisen or come to light during COVID-19, inequities of race, gender, and geography, and the question,

“How do we experience change?”
How do we survive change?
How do we bring about change?
How are we changed?
How are we changing?

We hope our visitors will reflected on thier experiences as they related to these stories, shared thier thoughts and experiences in the interactive sections, and found resources to take action and make a difference in your own community—and beyond.

ENDURING COVID-19:
STORIES FROM OUR TRANSFORMING WORLD

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Bringing together stories of strength, innovation, and hope from our community in Washington State during the COVID-19 pandemic, this online experience created a forum for connection, empathy, and healing.

Exploring the challenges, inequities, creativity, and community spirit arising during the pandemic, the experience highlighted stories under five main themes: Fighting and Treating COVID-19, Spreading Joy and Healing, Sharing Critical Information, Meeting the Needs of Communities, and Essential Workers Meeting Everyday Needs.

Explore the experience online now.

REFLECTIONS – 20 YEARS OF THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION

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This special exhibition highlighted the work of six Seattle area artists with over 20 artistic interpretations of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work with partners over the last 20 years. These artworks are organized into four themes that are key to the foundation’s work.

Ensuring more children and young people survive and thrive

Empowering the poorest, especially women and girls

Combating infectious diseases that particularly affect the poorest

Inspiring people to take action to change the world

Artists began creating their artworks for this exhibition in January 2020 just as COVID-19 was spreading throughout the world. This had a strong influence on their work.

Image: SURVIVE & THRIVE: A Stronger Existence by Maya Milton

Through Positive Eyes: My Photo, My HIV Story

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Through Positive Eyes features photography, stories, sculpture, and video created by people living with HIV/AIDS in 11 cities across the world. In each city, a photography and storytelling workshop is conducted, putting cameras in the hands of people most deeply affected by HIV. Combined, these works show a broad picture of the epidemic, organized around themes such as the Burden of Stigma, Stories My Body Tells Me, Alive and Well, and What Makes Me Laugh. The images and stories range from everyday life to joy, grief, solitude, and resilience.

Through Positive Eyes is organized by the UCLA Art & Global Health Center and is co-curated by David Gere, Director, UCLA Art & Global Health Center, Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, and founder of MAKE ART/STOP AIDS; Carol Brown, independent curator; and Stan Pressner, exhibit designer. Project co-directors are David Gere and London-based South African photographer Gideon Mendel. Major funding is provided by the Herb Ritts Foundation.

Images: Christian, Washington, D.C., United States; Maureen, London, United Kingdom; Ilsa, Mexico City, Mexico

WE THE FUTURE: YOUNG LEADERS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

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We the Future showcased the stories of ten young leaders working to build an equitable and inclusive world through their respective social change movements. Inspired by Amplifier’s We the Future education campaign and co-curated with the Gates Foundation Discovery Center’s Youth Ambassador Program, the exhibit celebrates youth leadership and action across a range of social justice issues and invites audiences of all ages to imagine and become the change they want to see in the world.

The exhibit featured the powerful stories of Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Amanda Gorman, Leah the Activist, Ismael Nazario, Winter BreeAnne, Lydia X. Z. Brown, Lindsay Amer, Amanda Nguyen, Isra Chaker, and Paul S. John ̶ alongside iconic graphic artworks of each of these 10 young leaders by the artists Shepard Fairey, Rommy Torrico, Munk One, and Kate DeCiccio. The exhibit featured inspiring videos, hands-on art-making, brave spaces for community dialogue, and ways to take action.

Design With The 90%

September 13, 2018 - August 31, 2019

Design With The 90%

September 13, 2018 - August 31, 2019

How might design transform lives around the world? Act as a catalyst for change? Expand access? Include those who have been excluded?

Design with the 90%: Improving Lives Around the World, highlighted the global efforts of designers striving to answer these questions and developing affordable and sustainable shelter, food, drinking water, sanitation, and health solutions for some of the world’s most marginalized communities. Design with the 90%, which was organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum featured 25 projects that demonstrated how design can be a dynamic force for social change.

Several Seattle-area designers were featured, such as BURN Design Lab, PATH, a leader in global health innovations, and Teague whom collaborated on a design prototype Kenyan-designed Kio Kit, which combines 40 kid-friendly tablets and headphones, a wireless charging case with 5TB of storage and pre-loaded educational content that can transform remote schools into digital classrooms. Review the full list of featured projects.

The exhibition also highlighted local issues where design can play a key role in developing solutions to challenges facing communities in the Seattle area. Visitors participated in a design thinking challenge, got inspired, and connected to local design community programs, and learned more about how to get involved.

Design with the 90% was organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.

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Past Exhibits

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