A dramatic indoor museum display focused on mass mobilization and anti-apartheid struggle. On our left, large red walls are covered with archival photos and black-and-white silhouettes of crowds of Black South African protesters holding rusty trash can lids, with prominent bilingual text such as "Mass Mobilization" and "What Freedom?" Across the room stands a massive yellow armored tank, towering twice as high as the protestors. Around it are tall dark information panels with historical text, photographs, posters, and archival imagery. Through the middle of the room on the floor is a white strip of raised tactile floor markers.

For the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, PAC Principal Corey Timpson directed and produced Mandela: Struggle for Freedom, a bilingual touring exhibition with immersive, interactive, and fully accessible media exploring Nelson Mandela’s life, the anti-Apartheid movement, and his legacy.

Media

An indoor exhibition display with large rusted, round metal trash can lids attached to a wall. The background panels are deep red and black, decorated with bold black-and-white stencil-like figures and shapes. Some informational text panels are visible but out of focus, suggesting a museum or historical exhibit. The shallow depth of field emphasizes the corroded texture and worn surfaces of the trash can lids while the rest of the display recedes into the background.
A dimly lit museum exhibit with a towering wall covered in layered signs, photographs, and text panels documenting racial segregation under apartheid. Many signs use English, Afrikaans, and French, with phrases such as "Whites Only," "Non-Whites," "Public Swimming Pool," "Waiting Room for Coloured Only," and references to discriminatory laws. Rob Itri-Vincent, an Indigenous Métis man, stands near the bottom of the display, looking upward, emphasizing the scale and density of the installation.
An indoor museum or exhibition gallery of an old office like space with vivid green walls and dark gray accent sections. Several framed photographs and documents hang on the left wall, while large informational panels in the center discuss "Clandestine Activity," including text in English and French. The exhibit is styled like a historical room, featuring a mustard-yellow armchair, a small side table with a white lamp and black rotary telephone, a tall wooden bookshelf filled with books and objects, and a wall-mounted map. A few visitors appear blurred from motion, suggesting they are walking through or interacting with the display. Bright overhead lighting creates dramatic shadows and highlights across the walls and objects.
A young child with pale skin plays with an oldr rotary phone in a warmly lit, museum-like room with dark green walls and vintage furnishings. The child, wearing a cap and green shirt, holds the receiver of an old black rotary telephone while pressing or touching the phone's base on a wooden table. A large floor lamp with a white shade stands beside the table, casting a strong shadow on the wall. In the background, other children and an adult stand near a wooden shelving unit, with a mustard-yellow upholstered chair positioned nearby.
An indoor exhibition space with an installation under construction on a wood floor. In the center is a partial concrete-and-metal structure resembling a prison cell, with a white barred gate standing open. A projector mounted overhead casts a colorful video or digital scene onto a wall inside the structure. Nearby are speakers, cables, a suitcase, a small stool, and a red barrel. The surrounding walls are painted bright blue and dark gray, with large text including "Please try again later. This media component is temporarily unavailable" in English and French.
A close-up of someone with light skin tone holding and tapping on a tablet in a dimly lit exhibit space. The tablet screen displays an interactive interface with icons and images, while a larger illuminated touchscreen or display panel sits on a table in front of them.
A young girl with pale skin in a bright pink jacket standing close to a museum wall, wearing oversized black headphones connected by a cord to an audio guide. She is looking up at a small framed video screen displaying black-and-white footage of Nelson Mandela with French subtitles. Around the screen are several wooden-framed exhibits, including historical photographs, text panels, and documents related to freedom, civil rights, and anti-apartheid history.
A dimly lit museum or gallery installation where two people are examining a digital interactive display table. One person, with medium skin tone, on the left is blurred in motion while touching the screen, and another with light skin tone stands across the table, focused on the display. To the right, a wall-like arrangement of posters features bold activist graphics and slogans related to democracy, apartheid, labor rights, and political movements.

Project Description

Mandela: Struggle for Freedom is a touring exhibition created by, and first presented at, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It was the last project Corey Timpson, one of PAC’s two Principals, directed and produced before fully leaving the human rights museum to partner with Sina Bahram at PAC.

In addition to Corey’s role as project authority, director, and producer, the work drew on the inclusive design approach that Corey and Sina had developed through earlier projects and that would become central to PAC’s practice. The broader project scope included interpretation, creative direction, design development across the built environment, design and production of navigable and time-based media, exhibition fabrication and installation, artefact loans, copyright, image and asset production, strategic partnerships, and exhibition activation.

This bilingual exhibition, presented in English and French, explores Nelson Mandela and the movement of which he was a part, and which eventually swelled around him. It traces Mandela’s history from lawyer, to activist, to prisoner for 27 years, to the leader who helped usher in the end of Apartheid, while also reflecting on his legacy.

Key installations included a mixed-media immersive prison cell; a full-scale, touchable Casspir tank like those used during the Soweto uprising juxtaposed with garbage can lids created to be similar to those used by the students in the uprising that could be removed from the scenography and held; a protest poster-making and sharing activity; a hidden puzzle and cloak-and-dagger living room recreation based on the farm where Mandela was smuggled for safety; a set recreation from his 1961 secret-location interview; and many other immersive, interactive, and media-rich experiences.

Inclusive design was central to the design and development of the exhibition. All navigable media was made accessible. All time-based media included signed interpretation, captions, and audio description in both English and French. Accessible environmental design supported comfortable navigation, focused lighting, clear edge and object detection, and high-contrast artefact presentation. Inclusive graphic design was a prerequisite for all design work, with emphasis on accessible typography, size-to-distance ratios, and high-contrast color combinations.

Forward access was provided at interactive installations. Tactile elements were incorporated throughout the exhibition. Universal Access Points (UAPs) provided access to all exhibition text through screen readers, along with image and artefact descriptions. A tactile floor vocabulary supported multimodal wayfinding, and accessible seating was included throughout the experience.

Self Expression for All

One of the exhibition’s signature installations was the poster-making activity, Posters for Freedom. During the Soweto uprising, Black school children demonstrated and protested the introduction of Afrikaans, widely understood as “the language of the oppressor,” as the medium of instruction in Black schools. An estimated 20,000 students took part in the demonstrations. Equipped with protest signs and garbage can lids, they were met with the extreme brutality of a militarized police force. This became a defining moment in the anti-Apartheid movement.

The exhibition responded to this history through an installation that invited visitors to create their own protest posters and share them both online and in the gallery. In the physical exhibition, visitor-created posters were projected into an installation of recreated protest signs, three of which were intentionally left blank to receive the projections.

The software installation was developed to be accessible, with all content in both French and English described, tagged, and surfaced through accessible interfaces. This meant that Anglophone and Francophone visitors could create posters concurrently, that blind and low vision visitors could participate equitably, and that people who might never come to the museum could participate remotely through the mobile website at PostersForFreedom.ca.

Recognition

Mandela: Struggle for Freedom was recognized as

  • Best Exhibition Media or Experience by the GLAMi Awards
  • International Design Award, Honorable Mention for Exhibition Design
  • Core77 Interaction Design Award for the Posters for Freedom installation.
  • ICE Awards – GOLD Digital, Mandela: Struggle for Freedom – 27 Minutes for 27 Years commercial
  • ICE Awards – GOLD Non-traditional, Mandela: Struggle for Freedom – Cell Floor Decal
  • Manitoba Tourism Awards – Marketing Excellence Award
  • Mandela: Struggle for Freedom – 27 Minutes for 27 Years commercial