"Avalon Blues": Mississippi John Hurt Museum Installation

"Avalon Blues" is an interactive installation crafted to capture the life, challenges, and enduring musical legacy of Mississippi John Hurt, a famous African American Country Blues Musician active from the 1920s and the 1960s. This educational experience aims to shed light on the authentic narratives, the exploitation of his artistic contributions, and the enduring hardship faced by generations of African Americans in the Avalon, Mississippi region during his time.

Using a nearly 70-year-old Radio as the interactive interface and the TV as a window to the past, we teleport guests’ attention to the 1920s and the 1960s, so they can take a look at Hurt’s life, and learn about a piece of the history of African Americans living in the Mississippi Region, via a series of historical footage and the animation contents.

We modified this old radio and retrofitted it with our own system hardware, and swapped the original frequency tuning bar with Hurt’s life timeline. Using the frequency tuning knob as a touchpoint, the guests can access different chapters of his key life moments, see African Americans’ lives in the Mississippi region, as well as witness significant historical moments such as the murder of Emmet Till and the Civil Rights Movement.