March With Us | Harvey B. Gantt Center

Mecca of Digital Arts at Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture

Immersive Experience, Digital Interactive, Interactive Sculpture

January - February 2024

For Martin Luther King Day, Harvey B. Gantt Center’s Mecca of Digital Arts (MODA) hosted an interactive, immersive installation that transported guests back in time to join a unity walk experiencing the profound spirit of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his historical impact. MLK Day is the Gantt's most highly attended building activation attracting over 4000 visitors.

Minority Report is an interactive, touch-free installation that allows viewers to explore over 140 public domain photos from Black history and the civil rights era. This project’s inspiration stems from the observation that black history is rarely depicted through futuristic, sci-fi aesthetics. Additionally, the project seeks to offer a fresh perspective on familiar stories and engage younger audiences more effectively than traditional storytelling methods.

For Block Chain, Alexander used a 1938 city map of Charlotte, to create 3D models of historically black neighborhoods in Charlotte and placed them in "holographic cartridges" to frame them as valuable collectors' items. The name is a play on crypto, treating these city blocks like NFTs where the value is backed by their history rather than a market price.
In the installation, viewers use both hands to navigate: the right hand rotates the 3D maps, while the left reveals the Monolith Gazetteer, a digital record of the stories behind each neighborhood. Each neighborhood has its own particle system, to represent the history of the cities economic history that was destroyed by urban renewal.