Museumverse, which uses emerging technologies in the humanities to inspire community engagement, opened the multimedia exhibition Being at Home in Princeton, on view at Butler College until December 3, 2024. 

Centered on Princeton’s African American history, the exhibition utilizes archival photographs, paintings, and virtual reality to investigate Palmer Square’s construction, the resultant displacement of the town’s Black community, and the lived experiences of the residents of the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood.

Recent A&A Ph.D. recipient Mengge Cao *24, graduate students Iheanyi Onwuegbucha and Michael Zhang, and Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate student Shruti Sharma make up Museumverse. They were joined at the exhibition’s opening by Nigerian artist Onome Olotu, President of the Witherspoon-Jackson Historical and Cultural Society Shirley Satterfield, and Curator of Collections and Research at Historical Society of Princeton Stephanie Schwartz.

“When we started Museumverse, our goal was to expand the scope of storytelling in the arts through a multimedia approach,” said Zhang. Building on prior projects, Museumverse created a virtual reality (VR) experience that combines present-day footage of Palmer Square and the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood with historical footage and testimony, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in a layered history.

In this newest iteration, the group has added an exhibition of original paintings to its toolkit. 

In 2023, the group’s research on Palmer Square at the Historical Society of Princeton intersected with the work of Onome Olotu, Arts Council of Princeton spring 2023 artist-in-residence, who was then working on a series of large paintings called Postcards from Princeton. The series explores themes of belonging and memory with a backdrop of Princeton past. 

"Having lived in Princeton for two years now, I’ve often wondered why there are so few Black families here,” said Olotu. “When I learned there used to be many more, I began imagining what it would have been like to be part of that community. These paintings are the postcards I would have sent home, capturing the spirit of Black life in Princeton before the changes.” 

Olotu vibrantly revived the archival views of Princeton, inserting figures, including herself and Onwuegbucha, who is her husband. “When Iheanyi saw that the works I was creating had similarities to their concept, he suggested they visit my studio to see what I was doing,” said Olotu. “We were all convinced that a collaboration was a great idea.”

The combined mediums of virtual reality and painting reinforce one another, intensifying the viewer's ability to reimagine Princeton’s local history. 

“The VR experience and the paintings are both artistic interventions aimed at contextualizing the history of the African American community in Princeton,” said Onwuegbucha, “especially as most photos of the Palmer Square neighborhood at the HSP archive show buildings without human beings. Onome Olotu’s paintings and the VR environment both focus on key businesses and community spaces of the displaced African American community, bringing attention to this historical erasure. Onome’s work humanizes the archive by incorporating figures, including herself, within the archival images, while the VR experience draws attention to these heritage sites in a more immersive way.”

Attendees of the exhibition’s opening at Butler College were treated to a panel discussion in which Stephanie Schwartz and Olotu engaged with Princetonian Shirley Satterfield, whose family has lived in Princeton for six generations.  She shared her own experiences, including attending the Witherspoon School for Colored Children on Quarry Street.

Olotu’s Postcards from Princeton on view as part of the Being at Home in Princeton exhibition pays tribute to Satterfield. “This particular postcard series is a nod to the Witherspoon-Jackson Community for their resilience over the years and to Shirley Satterfield, who has done an astounding job in preserving their history,” said Olotu.  

The response to Olotu’s work and VR experience has been poignant for its creators. “One very notable piece of feedback I received was from a very sweet lady who shed tears upon viewing my works,” said Olotu. “She has a Millennial daughter who still sends her postcards from every journey she makes. That was the purest, most organic feedback and one of the reasons why I pour my whole self into my paintings.”

The VR experience also achieved its aim. “Those who tried the VR headset at the opening expressed interest in visiting the featured locations and learning more about the neighborhood’s history,” said Cao. “We hope the immersive nature of the VR tour encourages audiences to reflect on how the construction of Palmer Square has influenced the community’s experiences.”

The exhibition Being at Home in Princeton and the panel discussion are presented by Museumverse, a research team exploring the intersection between art, technologies, and public humanities, in collaboration with the Historical Society of Princeton. The exhibition and panel discussion were cosponsored by the Department of Art & Archaeology, Inclusive Princeton, the Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES), the Lewis Center for the Arts, the Princeton University Humanities Council, the University Center for Human Values, the Center for Collaborative History, the Center for Digital Humanities, and the Carl A. Fields Center.