‘Philadelphia Weekly’ Spotlights Institute’s Oral History Program, ‘Between Us and Catastrophe’ Exhibition

Staff members share why recording history is so important, especially during a pandemic.

March 21, 2022

The Science History Institute’s oral history program and recent Between Us and Catastrophe outdoor exhibition are featured in Philadelphia Weekly, the city’s leading alternative news source.

Several staff members contributed short pieces to the recently relaunched publication, including David Caruso, director of the Institute’s Center for Oral History, who discusses the importance of preserving stories from the past. He shares how he laments that no one recorded the life stories of his “GPa” before he passed away and offers tips on how to prepare and conduct an oral history interview like we do here at the Institute.

Saving Stories: An Oral History Primer >>

Other contributors include research curator and museum experience strategist Lisa Berry Drago, who explains why the Institute decided to launch Between Us and Catastrophe, an outdoor exhibition that featured large-scale portraits of the pandemic’s essential workers created by Philadelphia photographer Kyle Cassidy. Installed on the exterior of our building from October 2020 through August 2021, Between Us and Catastrophe also included exclusive interviews with Cassidy and the essential workers from the portrait series produced by our Distillations podcast team that can now be experienced as a video tour.

‘No One Does Anything Alone’: An Oral History of ‘Between Us and Catastrophe’ >>

Cassidy is also featured in Philadelphia Weekly, where he gives a personal account of his Between Us and Catastrophe project two years after its launch in March 2020.

‘Between Us and Catastrophe’ >>