CLIENT: IDEA Public Charter School

"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."

George Washington Carver

Indigo Creative Works was commissioned to design and produce an Augmented Reality Exhibit Activation, “Developing Strong Minds: Exploring the Evolution from Deanwood to Carver to IDEA” for IDEA’s 20th Anniversary Gala.

The immersive installation guides visitors through a journey of IDEA's storied educational roots and the history behind the school's historic building from the Deanwood School (1909 to 1945) to Carver Elementary (1946 to 1988) to IDEA (1999 to the present). Visitors used a mobile app to reveal augmented reality content and experience eye-to-eye storytelling that traces the schools' students, faculty, history, and origin from the past to the present, bringing alive memories and the rich, little-know stories of Washington, DC’s historic black Deanwood’s early community pride, cultural movements, resilience, and scholarly achievements.

Many of the exhibit’s AR experiences featured stories highlighting notable African American achievers of the Deanwood community such as:

Major Andrew D. Turner (Deanwood School alumni), a Tuskegee Airmen/CFA Red Squadron pilot who are best known for their extraordinary efforts in the air war of World War II, and for challenging the stereotypes that had kept black Americans from serving as pilots in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Educator, inventor and scientist, George Washington Carver (b. 1864-1943), the Carver Elementary School was renamed in his honor, circa 1946. Carver a former slavery, however, despite these circumstances later developed hundreds of products from his research and experiments with peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans.