At once exhibition, educational center, and gathering place, the Photography Interpretive Gallery at SFMOMA offers visitors the opportunity to discover, learn, create, and reflect. The multi-purpose space, designed by Second Story, merges digital and physical in creative yet accessible ways, resulting in a visitor experience that feels both familiar and unfamiliar, comfortable and surprising.

Three interactive installations within the gallery teach visitors to cast a critical eye on how we shape photographs and how photographs shape our perceptions of the world. In The View from Here, guests explore the impact of photography on California’s history—and its mythology. Turning a pair of dials, an analog nod to the mechanics of the camera, they navigate through a series of narratives providing context around and insight into seminal works from the museum’s collection.

In Their Own Words focuses on the wildly divergent creative processes of contemporary photographers. Browsing video playlists organized by theme, visitors discover candid interviews with a variety of artists whose styles range from conceptual to documentary to experimental. A speaker array strategically integrated into the space ensures an intimate and seamless A/V experience.

Elsewhere in the gallery, Self Composed challenges visitors to represent themselves using only the contents of their pockets. Our team collaborated with Adobe on the physical design of the installation, which encourages visitors to consider the images they see and take themselves through a new lens.