I was inspired to create Tongues of Fire after reading Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia, a novel about a family living through Cuba’s revolution. One line in particular stood out to me: “We speak Spanish when we make love. English seems an impossible language for intimacy." I was fascinated with this idea of love and intimacy transforming depending on the language used to communicate. To answer this question and share my research, I built a virtual exhibit that allowed readers to explore scholarly articles, poems, and talk show transcripts on the subject.

I wanted the structure of the exhibit to allow for personal exploration, replicating the guided freedom of actual museum exhibits where one can follow the suggested order or drift around as they choose. To accomplish this I constructed two possible ways to go through the information: linear and discovery. Linear would lead readers through the resources in an organized fashion, section by section. Discovery, however, would allow readers to click around as they wished, only guided by the color coded icons.