TIDES OF FREEDOM / WASTEBOOK B
Client: Independence Seaport Museum
GhM produced several interactive exhibits for Independence Seaport Museum's (ISM) exhibition Tides of Freedom. The exhibition examined the concept of freedom through the lens of the African experience along the Delaware River, in and around Philadelphia. One of the key artifacts on view in the exhibition was Wastebook B, the worn 18th C. journal and ledger of a slave trader in area. Wastebook B's condition was too precarious to allow visitors to explore the pages, so GhM worked with the museum to create a digital facsimile that could be explored through a touchscreen interface. Individual pages of the book were photographed and digitally reassembled along with didactic annotations providing background information the journal's handwritten text.