Exhibition Design · Visual Identity · Interpretive Narrative · Immersive Installation
Lead Exhibition Designer — Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, San Antonio TX
Museo del Westside opened as the first museum on San Antonio's historically Chicano Westside, housed within the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center. As lead exhibition designer for the inaugural opening, I built the entire visual and interpretive framework for a community telling its own story in a dedicated space for the first time.
The museum grew from the convivios and desires of Los Corazones del Westside — principally elder women of the barrio who have met monthly since 2002. As memory bearers, storytellers, and cultural carriers, they are the museum's deepest sources of history. Every design decision had to honor that origin.
The challenge wasn't just design — it was trust. The visual language needed to feel rooted without being nostalgic, contemporary without being foreign, and bilingual from the ground up — not translated, but designed in English and Spanish simultaneously. I coordinated across departments, community stakeholders, fabricators, and vendors to bring each section to life.
Deliverables
As Lead Exhibition Designer and Project Manager, I coordinated the development and implementation of a multi-year museum exhibition from concept through public opening.
The Space
The museum spans multiple thematic galleries, each designed with a distinct visual register — color, typography, object density, and material — while maintaining coherence across the whole. The entrance sets the tone: bold, bilingual, grounded in labor history and Westside identity. "Our Work Transforms the World" anchors the entire exhibition philosophically.
Opening day — visitors engaging with the exhibition
Interpretive Narrative
The interpretive panels position the community as the author of its own history. The typographic system moves between documentary and intimate registers — archival photography, family records, and community-contributed objects as primary sources. The Nuestras Historias section traces Westside family histories through scaled portraiture, census documents, and personal objects, designed to feel like looking through someone's family archive.
"Community memory can offer histories that challenge erasure and displacement. Here are some of the stories we have recovered about the people who lived in the Rinconcito de Esperanza."
— Museo del Westside interpretive text
Nuestras Historias — community family portraits, archival documents, and timeline
Visitors on opening day engaging with family histories
Negocios en el Westside
San Antonio has always been a vibrant center for trade, political activity, and cultural exchange. The Negocios section traces the commercial life of the Westside — barbershops, boticas, tienditas — as sites of community resilience. The design uses archival imagery at scale, period objects, and a warm terracotta palette to create an immersive layered environment.