TURNING THE TABLE
Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop arrived at the Annenberg Space for Photography as a landmark exhibition—featuring contact sheets, portraits, and behind-the-scenes images from icons such as Jamel Shabazz, Estevan Oriol, Barron Claiborne, and Janette Beckman. The challenge was to create an identity and campaign that honored hip-hop’s cultural legacy while appealing to a broad Los Angeles audience, conveying both the exhibition’s artistic depth and its historical importance.

I developed the full exhibition brand, marketing strategy, and key experiential elements—crafting a visual language that felt bold, authentic, and rooted in the aesthetics of hip-hop photography. Working with the studio team, I produced out-of-home campaigns, on-building graphics, digital assets, and film spots that highlighted the photographers’ voices and brought the energy of the culture into the public realm. Inside the exhibition, I designed select experiential elements that deepened immersion and invited visitors to step into the creative processes behind the images.


KEY DELIVERABLES & CONTRIBUTIONS:

• Exhibition Trailer: Wrote, directed, and edited the broadcast trailer (above) promoting the exhibit.
  
• Marketing Materials: Posters, flyers, out-of-home, event, and promotional ephemera design and production.

IMPACT:

• The exhibition broke all attendance records, becoming the most celebrated and most visited in the history of the Annenberg Space for Photography.
• Marketing demand far exceeded expectations, and the show received widespread critical praise for both its content and presentation.
• The campaign helped bring hip-hop’s visual heritage to a new generation of museumgoers, elevating the artists behind the lens and establishing Contact High as a major cultural moment for Los Angeles.