Wayne LaBar
Vice President, Exhibitions and Featured Experiences and Principal in Charge of LSC Experience Services
Liberty Science Center
222 Jersey City Blvd
Jersey City NJ
07305-4636
USA
http://www.lsc.org
Wayne LaBar is responsible for oversight of thematic content, exhibitions, large-format film program and 2D/3D/overall design. He spearheaded the development of a suite of new experiences that were part of the 2005-2007 experience renewal program, transforming Liberty Science Center through a $109 million, 22-month expansion and renovation project. Through this initiative Liberty Science Center’s experiences are now recognized as having succeeded in making the Center’s informal experiences more relevant to guests’ everyday lives and global issues; educating and inspiring action; addressing ongoing developments in science and technology; and enhancing the Center’s learning and aesthetic environment. He also heads an ambitious push to explore how new technology can encourage guests to interact with exhibitions. Examples are "Science Now Science Everywhere" or "SNSE" (www.snse.lsc.org) , a unique cell phone application and the Exhibit Commons (http://www.lsc.org/interactive/exhibit-commons) , an "open source" exhibit initiative that invites guests to contribute to the museum’s mutable exhibitions, presenting new information or divergent points of view, building on the phenomena of social software. Through these efforts and others, Wayne and his fellow team members are currently exploring how to use new advances in technology and their resultant social changes to advance the exhibition field.
Wayne helped launch and now leads Liberty Science Center’s LSC Experience Services business unit, which helps design and develop science centers and museums around the world. Recent projects include the first science center in Puerto Rico; master planning for two science centers in Turkey; taking a significant role in creating the mission and framing work for a cultural center in Saudi Arabia; leading a capital planning study for The Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg and overseeing the first North American tour of Islamic Science Rediscovered, a new exhibition on the scientific and technological discoveries of the Muslim world from the 8th to the 18th century.
With over 22 years of museum exhibition development/design experience, Wayne joined Liberty Science Center in 1999 from The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. He holds a BA in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He attended The Getty Leadership Institute (GLI) and served on its Advisory Committee, and is also the Program Co-chair of the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME), a standing professional committee of the American Association of Museums (AAM). He is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
Wayne will present Can Social Media Transform the Exhibition Development Process: Cooking the Exhibition - an ongoing case study. [Paper]
