The new Jackie Robinson Museum opens today in New York City with an official ribbon cutting ceremony. The first permanent museum to celebrate the life and legacy of Jackie Robinson, the Museum also serves as a place to educate, inspire, and challenge visitors around topics of social and racial justice. The Jackie Robinson Museum explores Jackie’s commitment to civil and human rights while inspiring visitors to reflect on their own role in creating social change.
Cortina Productions worked with the Jackie Robinson Museum to produce 20 media exhibits. Project highlights include the Intro Film, Speak Out interactive, and the Scoreboard LED Wall.
The intro film titled “Life is Not a Spectator Sport” welcomes visitors to the Museum by offering an introductory chronicle of Jackie Robinson’s multifaceted life and the values of his legacy, which are incorporated throughout the exhibits. It offers an overview of the critical experiences in the early lives of Jackie and his wife, Rachel, that laid the foundation for the triumphs and challenges ahead of them and highlights the relationships that influence the trajectory of Jackie’s life.
The Speak Out interactive invites visitors to explore social issues that they may be interested in or care about already and make a pledge of commitment to creating change around that topic. Visitors can select from six topics – Civil Rights, Education, Employment, Health & Wellness, Housing, and Police, Parole & Policy. To encourage them to continue the legacy of Jackie Robinson, visitors are then invited to sign a pledge stating how they will commit to action. They can then sign their promise, which adds their signature to a baseball with their pledge and allows them to share their commitment through email before it’s sent to the Scoreboard LED Wall in the museum where other visitors can view it.
The Scoreboard is a large digital screen that serves as a visual and story anchor point for the Baseline gallery. It presents visual montages around the key themes of Jackie Robinson’s life, displays special messaging around the themes and current events at the museum, and shows visitor generated content, such as the Speak Out pledges and visitor polling data from the Columns Interactives. These elements seamlessly transition from one to another, creating a living visual collage of Jackie’s legacy, his impact today, and visitor input.
The Jackie Robinson Museum opens to the public on September 5th. For more information, please visit https://jackierobinson.org/museum/.