Experiential · Systems Design · Communications
What does it take to make a museum feel like it actually belongs to teenagers?
In Spring 2022, I joined the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum as a student intern through their Teen ArtLab Collective (TAC). The collective brought together 16 student designers, artists, and organizers to work on a real question: how do you make a museum actually matter to a teenage audience?
Over three months, we built a strategy from scratch, including programming, digital presence, and community infrastructure. It ended in a multi-part proposal presented directly to Hirshhorn museum leadership.
The honest version of the problem is pretty simple; museums aren't built for teenagers, and teenagers know it. There's awareness of events, sometimes, but one-off programming doesn't build anything lasting.
The question we kept circling back to was: what would it take for a teen to feel like this place was actually for them? Not just tolerated by it, but with a stake in what actually happens inside it.
Access isn't the same as belonging. You can make something technically available and still have teenagers feel like it isn't for them.
I came in as a student intern. In practice that meant I was in a lot of rooms I probably wouldn't have been otherwise: exhibition openings, museum ideation sessions, strategy discussions, and planning conversations. Through intel gathered in these moments, my developed work touched experience ideation, event strategy, communications design, and graphic design.
We started with open brainstorming about what the ideal museum experience would actually look like for a teenager. Through collaborative workshops, we landed on four areas where there was real work to do: accessibility and inclusion, programming and events, digital engagement, and community ownership.
Early ideation sessions mapping the four opportunity areas: accessibility, programming, digital engagement, and community ownership.
We stopped designing for the museum as a viewing space and started designing for it as a community space. That sounds small, but it changes a lot of downstream decisions; interactivity over observation, socialbility over solitary viewing experiences, and accessibility as a starting point, not a checkbox. Once we agreed on that frame, it got easier to evaluate whether an idea was actually serving the goal or not.
What I think made the proposal real rather than aspirational was that we resisted designing isolated events.
A Teen Night by itself is just a Teen Night. Connected to workshops, a competition, a digital presence, and an accessibility layer, it becomes something teens can return to.
The interconnectedness was the whole point, and it became the backbone of how we organized the final proposal.
Mapping the interconnected ecosystem, where each initiative reinforces the others rather than standing alone.
The anchor of the programming was Teen Nights: recurring themed events, two to three hours, built around collaborative art stations, live music, food, and the chance to actually meet curators and other artists. The social layer matters as much as the art layer; if you give teenagers a real reason to be in the building together, the engagement follows from that.
Teen Night concept development: themed events designed around making, meeting, and community.
Alongside Teen Nights, we proposed drop-in workshops: no sign-up required, focused on making and career exploration. Low barrier on purpose to let more teens find their way into the programming without requiring a commitment upfront. We paired that with a quarterly art competition tied to current Hirshhorn exhibitions, giving teens a reason to engage with the collection itself, not just the social programming around it.
Workshops and competition: two ways to give teens ownership over what they're making and what the museum shows.
The digital layer created a loop into the online space; Instagram content: weekly posts, teen takeovers, DMV artist highlights, event promotion, discussion prompts.
A website with TAC member portfolios, event info, competition submissions, and resources. The principle was that the museum's online presence needed to feel like it was made for and by teens, not just promoted at them.
The digital layer: social content and a website presence that reflects the teens inside the program, not just the institution.
The accessibility work was the part I found most interesting to think through: ASL tours. Audio descriptions via QR codes, tactile experiences, and seating designed around exhibit themes (nod to my time at The National Building Museum). Additionally, teen-led content explaining artworks in non-institutional language.
The goal wasn't compliance. It was designing so that more people could actually be present, and so that the teens inside the room felt ownership over making that happen.
We delivered the proposal to museum leadership at the end of the internship. What we handed off wasn't an event plan, it was a framework. Something that could be built on, measured, and expanded over time.
The TAC cohort: teen designers, artists, and organizers who drove every part of this.
