Erie Canal Bicentennial: Waterway of Change
Telling the story of the Erie Canal’s complex legacy from multiple perspectives in honor of its 200th birthday
Overview
THE OPPORTUNITY
In close collaboration with the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation, The Buffalo History Museum, Indigenous advisors and contributors, and local historians, Local Projects was asked to design an exhibition space that activated the Canalside neighborhood and provide a backdrop for a range of events commemorating the Erie Canal Bicentennial.
THE STRATEGY
We developed an exhibition entitled Waterway of Change: Complex Legacies of the Erie Canal, and site-specific activations that let visitors uncover many layers of Buffalo’s past and inspire them to see the city’s present and future from new perspectives.
THE APPROACH
Experiences are distributed across several Canalside locations. The Longshed, which incorporates design elements from the storehouse located on that spot in the early 1800s, serves as the backdrop for thematic exhibits offering varied perspectives on the Erie Canal’s impact on Buffalo and the United States. Outdoor Installations at the Ruins and Main Canal provide visitors with site-specific stories that tie together past and present.
Partners
Hadley Exhibits, Beautiful Machines, Southern AV
Services
Strategy, Visitor Experience, Experience Design, Exhibit Design, Physical Design, Media Design
“Waterway of Change will share the remarkable story of the Erie Canal and the area now known as Canalside with visitors. As the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal approaches, this visitor experience will draw more people to Buffalo’s waterfront and help them connect to its history in a new and participative way.
The Details
Perspectives on the Canal
Artistic displays, artifacts, and touch screens dive deeper into how women, black and indigenous populations, and canal workers were impacted by the Erie Canal through their neighborhoods, stories, music, food, traditions, and advocacy.
Collaborations with indigenous consultants create a particularly deep sense of intimacy with both the objects and stories contained in this section.
Light is used as a design language throughout the exhibit itself, where different chapters and perspectives of history are illuminated through different lenses.
A Canal of Networks
Visitors explore their own relationship to the region, underneath a canopy of illuminated cubes representing historic figures and sites. and an installation of internally illuminated cubes.
Visitors can choose from a series of postcards honoring beloved contemporary attractions across Western New York alongside historic sites, and either take them home or answer a prompt on the back of a postcard as their contribution to the exhibit.
The Thresholds
Inspired by historic structures that once stood on the Canalside, five doorway-like outdoor installations at Canalside are portals to the Erie Canal’s enduring impact.
Discover Indigenous, Black, and immigrant stories, the entertainment and vice of the Canal District, and the commerce at the Western Terminus that shaped our world today.
