Museum of You: Subject to Change
An interactive art piece that translates my ever-changing archive of interests into a physical experience.
Duration
September 2026
Client
Northwestern EDI / Camp EDI
Services
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Physical prototyping
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Visual arts
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Storytelling
Challenge
Create a physical artifact that gives others insight into who I am.
The prompt sounded simple, but distilling myself into a single interest, skill, or identity felt fundamentally wrong. My interests are ever-changing as I pick up new hobbies, learn new tools, and follow whatever catches my curiosity next.
That led me to reframe the challenge: instead of capturing who I am at one moment, how could I design something that could evolve alongside me?
Solution
A physical, interactive portrait of me, told through the lens of my ever-changing interests. To bring that idea to life, I incorporated three key features:
Interchangeable tiles: Each interest lives on its own magnetic tile, making the collection easy to add to, remove from, and rearrange.
Decision randomizer: At the press of a button, the board cycles through the nine tiles, then randomly selects one, so I can spend less time choosing and more time making.
Built to grow: The “Learn Something New” tile creates intentional opportunities to continue expanding my repertoire of interests, hobbies, and skills.
Impact
A project about learning became an exercise in it.
Building the piece became an extension of the idea behind it. I intentionally pushed myself beyond the tools and processes I already knew, using the project as an opportunity to learn by making:
Expanded my toolkit: Learned laser cutting, soldering and electronics, 3D modeling in Fusion, and 3D printing.
Connected physical + digital: Combined fabrication, electronics, and code into a single interactive experience.
Designed through iteration: Worked through unfamiliar materials, technical constraints, and plenty of trial and error to take the project from concept to functioning prototype.