Midway’s Engineers: Service, Sacrifice and Everyday Life

The USS Midway Museum in San Diego, California, is a premier historical destination, attracting over one million visitors annually. Art Processors is proud to partner with this iconic institution on “Midway’s Engineers: Service, Sacrifice and Everyday Life” exhibits. This 5,400-square-foot exhibition celebrates the unsung heroes of the engineering department aboard aircraft carriers.
Art Processors designed the exhibits to allow the USS Midway itself to be the primary storyteller, with our work amplifying its rich history and the stories. The exhibition is choreographed across nine thematic galleries, encouraging free exploration, sparking curiosity, and deepening visitors' understanding of the engineers' dual roles: they are not only essential maintainers of the ship's operations but also courageous first responders during fire emergencies—the most significant threat at sea.
AP’s approach centered around three concepts: Human-forward, tactile & genuine. To create a captivating and multi-sensory experience, we employed first-person audio storytelling using the authentic voices of past engineers, allowing visitors to step into the shoes of the Midway crew. Through textured lighting and large-scale photography, motion-triggered audio and atmospheric soundscapes, motion graphics and interactive artfacts, the ship feels like a living and breathing organism that awakens and responds to visitors’ movements.
By embracing the ship as the primary storyteller and leveraging its exposed pipes, low ceilings, and compressed spaces as an architectural canvas, we infuse authenticity and emotional depth into the exhibits. This innovative approach transforms the ship's structural constraints into a vivid backdrop that brings history to life, making the exhibition not only informative but also profoundly moving. The experience serves as a testament to the resilience and ingenuity that thrived aboard one of America's most storied vessels, capturing the magic of the Midway and honouring the spirit of those who served on it.
“Our main goal was for the ship itself to serve as the primary storytelling medium. We transformed the original equipment into vessels that reveal stories through visitor interactions. Atmospheric lighting, audio, and projections combine to create a cinematic experience, vividly illustrating life and work aboard the Midway.”- Julie Flechoux, Creative Director