Public Relations Work
CONTACT
Hannah Kiefer
Director of Communication
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites
Indiana State Museum to open exhibit on opioid crisis
INDIANAPOLIS (Oct. 30, 2019) – The United States is in the middle of a crisis that is impacting our families and communities, with Indiana at the epicenter: opioid use disorder.
This February, the Indiana State Museum plans to talk about it.
A new exhibit that has been in the works for more than two years – “FIX: Heartbreak and Hope Inside Our Opioid Crisis” – will be at the museum from Feb. 1, 2020, through Feb. 7, 2021. Working with more than 50 community partners from around the state, the exhibit will explore the many faces of this crisis that affects all Hoosiers.
“Substance use impacts our family, friends and neighbors. That’s why continuing to help more people enter recovery will always remain a top priority,” said Gov. Eric J. Holcomb. “The more we know about the ways it affects people, the better equipped we’ll be to avoid dependence or support someone you love.”
FIX invites visitors to unravel the crisis one step at a time, including the science and biology behind opioid use disorder, our nation’s history with other health crises, personal stories from individuals affected and an area focused on what recovery can look like. Through authentic and trustworthy information, interactive artwork and personal stories, the exhibit will work to build empathy and reduce stigma surrounding opioid use disorder.
“Gov. Holcomb has placed significant resources behind attacking the drug crisis,” said Jim McClelland, Indiana’s executive director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement. “While there are signs of progress, there’s more ground to cover. This exhibit will inform youth and adults regarding substance use and empower them with the knowledge that there’s hope and healing is achievable.”
FIX is not only an exhibit for adults; it’s an exhibit also designed to engage youth ages nine and older. The exhibit aims to get information and understanding into the hands of these younger visitors with the hope of creating a more informed and strong community.
Hands-on interactives will allow families to explore the real science behind cravings or addictions, and video kiosks will share the real stories from Hoosiers personally affected by the crisis, from varying perspectives. Visitors can go inside a giant fabric brain to learn about how opioids affect the brain and explore a quilt fort created by local artist and person in recovery himself, Philip Campbell. Photos taken just for the exhibit by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Bill Foley will show what recovery can look like around the state.
At the end of the experience, visitors will find resources about the topic, so that they know where to get help or where to look if they would like to help find solutions themselves.
“We want our visitors to walk away with the sense that they know more, understand more, and can empathize with people – just like them – who are suffering from opioid use disorder,” said Cathy Ferree, president and CEO of the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites. “It is a disease, and understanding that allows us all to move forward.”
Along with the exhibit, programming addressing the crisis will take place at the museum in downtown Indianapolis and the 11 historic sites statewide, from panel discussions to town hall-style meetings. The programming will extend beyond the run of the exhibit, for as long as the communities see a need for them.
“We cannot hide from the numbers that show the depth of the addiction problem in our state,” said Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush, who also serves as co-chair of the National Judicial Opioid Task Force. “We must face them with courage and consider the humanity behind the numbers.
The devastating addiction statistics are real people: our family members, our colleagues, our neighbors and our friends.”
A media preview day is planned for Jan. 31. More information will be available in early January. Please contact Hannah Kiefer at hkiefer@indianamuseum.org or 317-234-8146 for more details or to schedule an interview.
FIX is supported by Next Level Recovery, Ball Brothers Foundation, George and Frances Ball Foundation, Efroymson Family Fund and CVS Health.
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The Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites is located in White River State Park in the heart of downtown Indianapolis. It is Indiana’s museum for science, art and culture, offering a place where you can celebrate, investigate, remember, learn and take pride in Indiana’s story in the context of the broader world. Even the building is a showcase of the best Indiana has to offer in architecture, materials and sculpture. Easy and convenient parking is available in the attached underground garage.
CONTACT
Hannah Kiefer
Director of Communication
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites
New fashion experience to open at the Indiana State Museum
INDIANAPOLIS (Jan. 28, 2019) – This March, visitors will explore style through the lens of color in a new experience at the Indiana State Museum: Color of Style.
Whether people think about it or not, who we are shapes how we dress – and the colors that we choose to wear. This new experience will showcase more than 50 outfits from the museum’s historic clothing and costume collection, including everyday wear from the 1800s, a party dress from the 1920s, an outfit from the Jackson 5, and incredible pieces from iconic Hoosier designers Stephen Sprouse and Bill Blass.
“Color of Style is an opportunity for visitors to see how amazing our collection of historic clothing is,” said Meghan Smith, curator of the exhibit. “Featuring everything from high fashion gowns to homemade baby clothes, this experience gives our visitors a chance to engage with the collection and remember their own fashion histories.”
From the start, the experience will immerse visitors in color. They will wind their way through a color tunnel on their way into the exhibit, then take a quiz to discover which color best represents them. Inside the experience, nine fashion pods will feature outfits from different decades and even centuries, divided by their colors: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, pink, white and black.
Visitors of all ages can get creative in the Style Studio, where they’ll sketch their own unique fashions, soak in ideas from inspiration boards and create their own patterns to show off. Elsewhere in the exhibit, visitors can cast votes to determine “Who wore it better?” for various iconic fashions, try on colorful accessories and pose on the cover of a magazine, and more.
While the experience looks at the evolution of color choices and style over time, modern-day Hoosier designers will also be featured in special videos, including textile artist Kate Ellis, artist and indigo dyer Rowland Rickets, and up-and-coming fashion designer Yemisi Sanni. Plus, fashions and personal stories from real, everyday people will be shared within the experience itself, alongside the museum collection’s pieces.
"This new experience allows visitors to explore their own sense of style and think about how they associate different colors with themselves or others,” said Cathy Ferree, president and CEO of the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites. “Visitors have a chance to explore the stories of Hoosiers throughout time and engage in self-exploration and creativity throughout the experience."
Color of Style will be at the Indiana State Museum from March 16 through July 28, and entry is included with purchase of general museum admission. This experience is supported in part by the Arts Council of Indianapolis and the City of Indianapolis.
FOR MEDIA ONLY: Media previews will be available beginning March 13. To schedule a media tour, contact Hannah Kiefer at hkiefer@indianamuseum.org or (317) 234-8146. To view or download photos of some pieces featured in the experience, go here: http://bit.ly/2TgmPji
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The Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites is located in White River State Park in the heart of downtown Indianapolis. It is Indiana’s museum for science, art and culture, offering a place where you can celebrate, investigate, remember, learn and take pride in Indiana’s story in the context of the broader world. Even the building is a showcase of the best Indiana has to offer in architecture, materials and sculpture. Easy and convenient parking is available in the attached underground garage.
Note: The following is a blog-style op-ed I wrote with the president and CEO of the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, explaining the rationale behind an exhibit on the opioid crisis.
Why the opioid crisis?
By Cathy Ferree, President and CEO, Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites
Museums are a place to have big conversations about ways we can all influence the present and future. Museums should broaden perspectives through real stories and artifacts, and they should also address the topics of today that are relevant to visitors.
At the Indiana State Museum, we wanted to provide a place for our visitors to talk about a topic that can be shaming and isolating, and that affects every Hoosier: the opioid crisis. This crisis impacts all of us, but together, we can find hope in solutions.
Our exhibit, “FIX: Heartbreak and Hope Inside Our Opioid Crisis,” will allow visitors to do just that.
We are addressing the opioid crisis in an exhibit because it’s an issue that affects every single person in Indiana. It affects what prescriptions you might be offered after surgery, or pain management for your elderly parents. It of course affects those with opioid use disorder, and their loved ones.
As a statewide museum system with 12 locations, we are uniquely suited to tackle a topic with such universal reach. And while we have the exhibit in Indianapolis, programming at all 11 of our historic sites throughout and beyond 2020 will facilitate conversations within those communities as well.
Through this exhibit, visitors will learn about the science behind opioid use disorder, and how our brains are primed to crave substances. In video kiosks throughout the space, they will see people tell the true stories of their own experiences with the disorder. Interactive artwork will help visitors experience different artistic responses to the crisis, and photos from around the state by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Bill Foley will show what recovery can look like.
Our primary goal with this exhibit is to reduce stigma – to show that opioid use disorder is a disease, and it’s something we all must address together. We have worked with more than 50 community partners around the state to compile trustworthy, relevant facts about this crisis, and to make sure we are telling stories of this crisis in as truthful a way as possible. This is not a topic we can tackle alone. Rather, it’s a topic that we as a community must address together, from all sectors.
By learning the background to the crisis and hearing personal stories, it’s our hope that visitors leave with a renewed sense of empathy – and that their empathy might drive them to do something about the crisis. An area with resources will provide visitors with information regarding where to get help or how to have a tough conversation with a loved one, and also provide ways that they can get involved in helping heal Indiana from this crisis.
This topic can be dark, but this exhibit isn’t, because there’s hope in how Hoosiers are already working together to address opioid use disorder. There is hope in how we can continue to work together in the future toward solutions.
At the Indiana State Museum, we want to work with our visitors to discover and encourage that hope.
Social Media Work
Background: One of my clients is a fire and life safety company: CertaSite. Below are some graphic designs and posts I’ve done for CertaSite’s social media – Facebook and LinkedIn. I also wrote the text to go with the posts and provided strategic insight as to best times and frequency for posting. These are in line with their brand colors and style.
Background: Another client of mine is theCityMoms, a group that connects local women to each other and to community partners. Below are some designs I created for theCityMoms Instagram stories and Facebook, to show the different style used there. You’ll see some elements were added live in app – like the “poll here.” That’s just reminder text to me; it was covered in the post by the actual poll. The one on the right is actually a video because it had animation and several other slides.
Background: Since October, I’ve managed all of the marketing for the Indiana Wind Symphony aside from graphic design – email campaigns, social media campaigns, Facebook ads, press releases, blogger engagements, etc. Below are a few examples of social media work from one of their 2021 concerts.
Background: The below is a summary of a successful social media campaign I ran, including paid and organic posts across platforms while working at the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites. The campaign was for the promotion of our Phase II Core Galleries – “Frozen Reign: A State of Change,” “First Nations: The Story of Indiana’s Founding People,” and “The R.B. Annis Naturalist’s Lab." The posts, including ads, reached more than 350,000 people and elicited approximately 9,000 engagements int he form of reactions, comments and shares. I've included a few example screenshots of posts from this campaign.
Writing & Marketing
At the Indiana State Museum, I oversaw the creation of our quarterly "Guide to What's Next" - a 30+ page event guide featuring all events from the museum system's 12 locations. For this guide, I determined the focus, wrote all of the copy, fact checked all of the copy and ensured design and printing stayed on schedule.
Along with the guide, I also wrote copy for web, social media, email communications and more. I created, managed and wrote for our blog as well.
Internally, I oversaw and wrote our monthly museum board communication and staff employee newsletter, also monthly.
Samples of these works can be found in this section, and more samples are available upon request.
Background: I write, design and distribute email campaigns for my client, the Indiana Wind Symphony. Below is an example of an email sent out promoting one of their 2020 concerts.
Photography
NOTE: As a journalist and social media specialist, I often had to take my own photos. Below are some examples of photography work from my time at Conner Prairie. These photos include shots of newborn animals from the museum's Animal Encounters experience, as well as costumed interpreters.
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