America in Crisis

Exhibition

The exhibition ‘America in Crisis’, developed for Saatchi Gallery in London, featured more than 120 works by 40 Magnum photographers. Bringing together images from two key periods in US history: the 1960s, marked by civil unrest, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the anti-Vietnam War protests and recent works documenting events such as the storming of the Capitol and the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the killing of George Floyd. Through narrative, visual language, and image curation, the exhibition uncovers striking and often unsettling parallels between the America of the 1960s and today, demonstrating how many societal tensions remain unresolved.

Services

Spatial design
Graphic design
Wall Layout
Interactive installation

Client

Saatchi Gallery

Project

2021

Curated by

Sophie Wright
Gregory Harris
Tara Pixley

Photo credits

David Axelbank

This project was created during employment at LMNOP.works

Working in close collaboration with the curators, we developed both the spatial and graphic concept for the exhibition. A key objective was to create moments of juxtaposition between America in the late 1960s and contemporary America, revealing recurring social and political patterns while highlighting the cyclical nature of history. Visitors were guided through five thematic narratives: (1) The Deep Roots of Poverty, (2) Battle for Equality, (3) Confrontation, (4) Streak of Violence, and (5) The Political Response.

The resulting identity employs a bold, high-contrast visual language that merges historical and contemporary photography into a single narrative. Several graphic elements draw inspiration from the design of the original 1969 publication, reinterpreted through a contemporary lens. Walls covered with large-scale typography, banners referencing to the visual language of protest signs and an exhibition layout which takes visitors back and forth in time until the distinction between past and present begins to blur.

As captured in the foreword to the 1969 book by editors Jerry Mason and Adolph Suehsdorf: “Our crisis today is the clash between the nation’s traditional vision of itself – the American Dream – and the hard, discordant realities it lives with.”