Ralph Appelbaum Associates

The National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, boasts one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of WWI artifacts. Since 2021, the Museum and Memorial has been undertaking a multi-year exhibition refresh, marking its most significant update since opening in 2006. 

One of the highlights of this refresh is an immersive exhibition titled Encounters. Encounters enhances the Museum’s core exhibition through a story-led, media-rich exhibit that allows visitors to connect with the men, women, and children who lived through the First World War. Encounters emphasizes the human drama at the heart of this global conflict by featuring a diverse array of first-hand accounts: letters, diaries, oral histories, municipal records, and court transcripts. 

The exhibit encompasses sixteen carefully curated stories that represent a wide range of personal experiences during WWI. Alongside the narratives of combatants, the project aims to highlight the experiences of those less commonly told, such as women working in hospitals and munitions factories, children witnessing traumatic events, and chaplains grappling with faith amid chaos. 

Utilizing cutting-edge technology, Encounters facilitates an intimate engagement with these historical figures. High-fidelity Nanolumens LED screens and immersive audio from Holoplot speaker systems allow visitors to experience these stories in a profound way. This innovative approach reveals a mosaic of personal stories that humanize the Great War, enabling visitors to form a deeper connection with history.