Visitor: Information?

Visitor: Information? was an installation and public program that took place from May to July, 2024, and was supported by a fellowship with the Humanities Truck. It was inspired by a tradition of vernacular public information and aid booths ranging from Ralph Nader’s Public Citizens Visitors Center, to structures at the Poor People Campaign’s Resurrection City, to Lucy’s psychiatry booth from the Peanuts comic. The project approached the interaction as reciprocal; the information as an exchange.

The project had two parts. At a series of pop-ups at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library and Heurich House Museum, we asked Washingtonians to write questions and suggestions for tourists on the back of vintage postcards and other tourist ephemera. This material was then incorporated into an installation on the outside of the Humanities Truck, which was transformed into a mobile tourist information booth.

Setting up at in-between or “downtime” locations that were convenient to Washington’s summer visitors—and yet outside or proximate to the city’s “official” tourist spaces– we offered help, advice, and information to visitors, and invited the same of them.

The project was both exhibition and interactive program: Washingtonians and tourists alike were fascinated by the ephemera, realizing that the way that the city has been presented to its visitors has not changed over time.

Learn more, and read about the project at the Humanities Truck website