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FeedRace, the exhibit
COSI is starting 2012 with an ambitious exhibition, Race: Are We So Different?, opening Jan. 28.
The short answer to the question the exhibition poses is no. Scientists, drawing from advances in genetics research, state that while human variation does exist, the concept of race is not rooted in biology. All human beings are genetically similar and there is no correlation between genes and the idea of race. It is a social construction.
The exhibition, a project of the American Anthropological Association, already has been at nearly a dozen museums and science centers throughout the U.S., most recently at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Now, it’s COSI’s turn.
Race approaches the topic through three categories: science, history and everyday experience. Each category involves a powerful combination of artifacts, historic and contemporary photography, and multimedia and interactive activities, including:
• “Who’s Talking?”—a station that invites visitors to match voices they hear with photos of people of different races to see if they can identify a person’s race by his speech.
• “The Colors We Are”—participants scan their skin and see the photo appear alongside the scans of other visitors’ skin, creating a colorful mosaic of skin tones.
• “We All Live Race”—a video of many people talking about the role race has played in their lives.
A group of multicultural advisers, more than 20 strong, is working with COSI staffers to plan and promote programs related to the exhibition. “Diversity in Science Day,” featuring more than a dozen scientists of various backgrounds, will happen when the exhibition opens. Another is a lecture on April 18 given by Cornel West, author of Race Matters.
Additionally, the science center has gathered “a lot of community players who believe with us that this is a great platform for discussing race,” says David Chesebrough, COSI’s president and CEO. More than 20 companies and organizations are represented among them. (Nationwide Insurance is the lead sponsor, with Abercrombie & Fitch and Chase Bank also providing support.)
Chesebrough notes that before the exhibition initially opened in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2006, “A lot of people didn’t want to touch it. They thought that race is too hot a topic. But once people started to see the power of the exhibition, everyone has been clamoring to have it.”
