Unhidden Heroines’ pairs important women in US history with monuments on the National Mall commemorating men of their time
A month after the US House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have designated a site for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum in Washington, DC, the nascent museum has unveiled an augmented reality (AR) experience on the National Mall as part of the country’s semiquincentennial celebrations.
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Unhidden Heroines (until 31 December), featuring the stories of five trailblazing American women whose contributions to US history have been under recognised, had been in the works for nearly a year. It is the first AR initiative presented by the museum, which until now has mostly organised online exhibitions and educational events like panels and talks.
The launch comes as the museum’s future appears uncertain in the wake of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum Act’s failure in congress, after Republican lawmakers amended the formerly bipartisan legislation to exclude transgender women from exhibitions and programming. The revised bill would also have effectively given President Donald Trump veto power over the location of the museum. The women’s museum, together with National Museum of the American Latino (which is also still awaiting a site), was originally authorised by congress in 2020.
The AR experience is “really meeting people where they are”, Melanie Adams, the women’s museum’s interim director, tells The Art Newspaper. “While we’re waiting to get our location on the Mall, this is a great way for us to be on the Mall in a virtual way.”
The location is significant, not only given aspirations to eventually build the museum along a swath of Washington that receives more than 36 million visitors a year but also because of the relative dearth of women depicted in the Mall’s public monuments.
Each of the five women’s stories in Unhidden Heroines is designed as a four part interactive AR experience that can be accessed for free from a mobile phone or tablet while visiting a specific monument on the Mall. At the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, visitors can learn about Dorothy Height, a Black activist known as the “godmother of the Civil Rights Movement”. A full size animation of Height and elements from her life “pop up” as she tells her story in a first person narration that is easily accessible to all ages.
“In designing the 3D women for the experience, it was important that they appear monument sized larger than life with the same presence and stature as the men’s monuments they’re alongside,” Claire Stokes, an associate creative director at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners (which designed the experience), said at a press preview earlier this month.
The story of Julia Ward Howe an author, poet and later women’s suffragist best known for writing the lyrics to the Civil War era rallying song Battle Hymn of the Republic is designed to be viewed at the Lincoln Memorial. Meanwhile, that of Mary Katharine Goddard, a Maryland printer who published the first version of the Declaration of Independence to list the names of its signatories, is paired with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. (The other two women represented are the 1940s codebreaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Polly Cooper, a member of the Oneida tribe who helped George Washington’s army during the American Revolution.)
In an era when nearly everything is gamified, Unhidden Heroines incentivises viewers to collect hidden artefacts in all five women’s stories for a reward at the end. The full loop of sites, if completed, involves around two miles of walking. (Unfortunately, there are no QR codes physically located alongside the monuments for visitors to scan to access the AR experience; they need to know about it in advance.)
While acknowledging that it could be more than a decade before a physical Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum opens, Adams notes the value of using projects such as Unhidden Heroines to gauge visitor interest and engagement in the meantime. “This gives us a great opportunity to test out programmes like this,” she says, “to really make sure we’re providing experiences and delivering information in a way that people want to receive them.”
Although the project is best experienced on site, the online platform for Unhidden Heroines can also be accessed remotely from any internet connected smartphone, with a non interactive version available as well part of the museum’s goal of reaching audiences across the country.
Adams adds that the recent setback in Congress has not changed anything about the museum’s mandate or mission, which continues as before, even without a designated site.
“Women’s history is American history,” she says. “We are telling the often untold stories of women and making sure that their history is at the forefront and being included.”