Founded as a history museum that would tell everyone’s story, the Levine Museum looked to Metcalfe to design a new exhibit about the history of Charlotte from Native and early European settlement to today. 

How did Charlotte grow from a trading village to an urban financial center? How have inequality and resistance shaped the city?  How is Charlotte becoming a more multicultural city? What does it mean to be a New South city? 

Using objects from the museum’s collections, interactive media displays, and art by local creatives, “Charlotte: Moving Forward, Looking Back” invites visitors to learn the answers to these questions through the diverse stories of people, places, and events that have shaped Charlotte’s history. 

Metcalfe designed a series of engaging and thought-provoking panels interspersed with objects ranging from Catawba pottery made by descendants of Charlotte’s first inhabitants, to a tear gas canister used against civil rights protesters, to an early 20th century ballot box, to guide visitors through the exhibit and support the Levine Museum’s mission of connecting the past to the future to realize the promise of a New South.