CORNWALL, Conn.—The Cornwall Library will present “Sites of Controversy, From Cornwall’s Memorials to the 9/11 Museum,” Saturday, Nov. 15, at 5 p.m.
The talk at the 30 Pine St. library the will be presented by Jake Barton, founder and chief creative officer of Local Projects, an experience and exhibit design firm for museums, brands, and public spaces.
His work focuses on storytelling and engaging visitors through emotion and technology such as hands-on interaction and his credits include the highly acclaimed 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York.
America, it can seem, regularly revisits its past as a battleground for current disputes. Monuments to Civil War heroes, for instance, are a flashpoint in our culture wars, with monuments toppled or even remade to tell radically different stories.
Barton’s work represents a new approach to museums and monuments. He says, “Museums are not about the stuff, they’re about the effect that museums have on people.”
He argues that the controversy that museums and memorials elicit are not peripheral: “The conflict is a form of service, creating a civic space to tell and retell our American stories for each new generation.”
Barton’s firm is working on the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library (with fellow Cornwall resident Charlie Melcher), a Museum for the United Nations, the Motown Museum, and the Courage Museum in San Francisco, all set to open in 2026.
In addition to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, his credits include landmark projects such as the media for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Planet World in Washington DC, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
He lives in New York City and Cornwall with his partner, Jenny Raymond, and two children.