860 Terry Avenue N
Seattle, WA 98109
206.324.1126
information@mohai.org
Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) is a tribute to the creative energy and enterprise of the Pacific Northwest. As are most museums these days, it is also an information-gathering site, inviting viewers to share their thoughts, ideas, and experiences as they move through the space, listening to others who have left their marks on our region.
My favorite spaces in the museum are touch screens where you can animate a person’s image and hear what she has to say about innovation. Although some of the people on these screens are predictable—well-known regional entrepreneurs and MacArthur Award winners, for example—there are others who are unexpected, such as people talking about the role of creativity in skateboarding, early education, and DNA discoveries. Museum goers are invited to contribute their own talking screen, as if to say creativity can come from anywhere where knowledge, passion, and vision reside together.
There is much to see at MOHAI about the history of our place, and much to do, too, including lifting the hill off Denny Hill. A reason to get there before July 6th is so you can see the exhibit entitled Revealing Queer, which tracks growth and change in Puget Sound’s LGBTQ community between 1969 and 2012, the year when marriage equality came to Washington State. The exhibit is fascinating but perhaps more interesting and moving are the notes that people visiting the exhibit have posted about their lives today. I hope the museum has a staff researcher who is doing something with those notes!
