The October design charrette served as an opportunity to invite members of the public and local artists, organizers, and cultural thinkers to experience the museum and collectively brainstorm ideas for how it can be enhanced to usher in new programs, exhibits, partnerships, and participation across its various gallery and event spaces.  

The day started with Lois Conley (Executive Director, The Griot Museum of Black History) and De Nichols (Loeb Fellow, Harvard University) welcoming attendees into the museum, and upon a round of introductions, providing an overview of the Growing Griot initiative and the day’s goals for the design charrette. Griot Museum staff then provided the full group a tour of both its active and unused spaces and shared histories about the space, building, and organization. Following the tour, each attendee was provided a prompt to write their individual responses and reflections from the spatial tour of the building. Guided by their written reflections, participants then discussed architectual, programmatic, curatorial, and community engagement ideas, opportunities, challenges, and uses that The Griot could consider for implementation. Using art supplies and materials provided, participants broke into small groups to visualize top ideas that emerged from the full group conversation, and then they presented them to the fuller group. 

The charrette resulted in space-specific suggestions for all of the floors of The Griot Museum as well as ideas regarding its narrative development, content, and storytelling strategy. In addition, a group of three participants additionally discussed suggestions for how the museum can build its financial capacity to fund the ideas generated and brainstormed throughout the day.