Community Meeting Room | 8 October – 8 November, 2021
There is no question that we will all cease to exist, but have you ever wondered what are the odds that you will die from a shark attack or a mosquito bite? How many people are 100 years old in the US? Or where do people live longest? The book Mortality was born after Richard Saul Wurman’s and Nigel Holmes’ genuine curiosity on these and many other matters related to death. Far from it being a morbid approach to the subject, the authors resorted to maps, graphs, and charts to illustrate the facts. As a parallel story, throughout the book Richard Saul Wurman and Islon Woolf, MD held a conversation on life, death, health, history, anatomy, and art, among other subjects.
Coinciding with Mr. Wurman’s solo show in the Museum, Richard Saul Wurman; Watercolors & Bronzes, the exhibition Mortality gathers select pages of the book that have been enlarged into wall vinyl panels.
This project is in collaboration with Books & Books, where Mortality can be acquired.
Throughout his life, Richard Saul Wurman (Philadelphia, PA., 1935) has challenged traditional forms of presenting and understanding facts. He has lectured extensively, and published nearly a hundred books on different subjects, with a focus on ‘information architecture’ (a term that he coined.) He created an array of conferences where great minds from the most varied backgrounds converged, including the popular TED, from 1984 to 2002, and a spinoff TEDMED Conferences from 1995 to 2010. His trailblazing, multidisciplinary approach to Knowledge and Understanding has granted him numerous accolades, including several honorary doctorates and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian, Cooper-Hewitt in Design. Mr. Wurman’s latest milestone is the Wurman Center for Understanding Understanding at RIT, Rochester Institute of Technology in New York State which is currently in development. Website: https://www.wurman.com/
Born in England in 1942, Nigel Holmes moved to the US in 1978 to work at Time Magazine, where he became Graphics Director. After 16 years at Time, he left to start his own information design business, Explanation Graphics. Clients have included Apple, Sony, American Express, Visa, GM, Nike, and such publications as National Geographic, The New York Times, Fortune, and The New Yorker. In 2009, the Society for News Design gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2020 he was awarded the Ladislav Sutnar award. He has been nominated four times for a National Design Award. Apart from collaborations with Richard Saul Wurman on a variety of projects and books, he has written and illustrated 12 of his own books. The latest is The Bigger Book of Everything (2020) and the next one, Joyful Infographics, will be published in 2022. Website: http://www.nigelholmes.com/
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