Esperanza Spalding Selects: D+Evolution

This exhibit is about people, culture, and design evolving.

This exhibit is about people, culture, and design devolving.

This exhibit is about people, culture, and design simultaneously evolving and devolving.

All of the objects in this room reflect a juncture in design where values, forms, and relationships broke down and new iterations emerged.

I call it d+evolution.

In preparing this exhibit, I myself have gone through a d+evolution:
From bass-playing, singer–songwriter to curator and piano “re-imaginer.”

D+evolution happens in life as well as in design. THAT is what this exhibit is really about.
Each little undoing of what we know—or who we think we are—prompts a next step in our evolution toward what we become.

The design of who we are is constantly devolving and evolving—from environment to environment, idea to idea, style to style—simultaneously breaking down while building up what it means to be you, me, and we.
This exhibit is a celebration of d+evolution.

As you explore the gallery, you’ll be accompanied by four pieces of music d+evolved from one of the pieces of sheet music to your right.

Enjoy, and may your state of being forever be d+evolving! 

 Installation image: Esperanza Spalding Selects: D+Evolution, 2017. Courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.