The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation
Open Menu

2024 Grant Awards

THE MUSEUM OF HIDDEN GENIUS: An Atlas of Afrotech

  • Dr. Matthew Kenyatta
  • City and Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design
  • Independent Creative Production Grant
  • How to Apply
  • Browse Grant Awards
Museum of Hidden Genius logo.

Screenshot of the animated logo of the Museum of Hidden Genius project depicting flickering light trails tracing the words in a neon yellow glow accompanied by a lightbulb with a brain as its carbon filament. Created by Dr. Matt Kenyatta, November 2023.

THE MUSEUM OF HIDDEN GENIUS (MOHG) is a digital cabinet of curiosity crowdsourcing histories of African American invention, or “Afrotech”, to preserve, exhibit, and activate an atlas of hidden heritage worthy of wonder, adventure, and world-making in legacy cities. Barely 2.5% of the 98,000 sites in the National Register of Historic Places are devoted to African American heritage. In 2023, only four Black heritage sites are designated for “Invention.” The MOHG pursues the quest, “Where is the African American geography of genius: the hidden Atlas of Afrotech?” In answering this, can storytelling and spatial technologies help joyfully repair legacies of erasure in public spaces? The platform prototypes a micro-museum with several galleries that offer answers to this quest.

A nine-second animation of a logo depicting flickering light trails tracing the words the Museum of Hidden Genius in a neon yellow glow accompanied by a lightbulb with a brain as its carbon filament. Created by Dr. Matt Kenyatta, November 2023.

  • 2024
  • City and Regional Planning
  • Independent Creative Production
  • Making Art Grant
  • Weitzman School of Design

Back to Grant Awards

The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation

John McInerney (he/him)
Executive Director
215-573-0874
mcinernj@upenn.edu

Chloe Reison (she/her)
Associate Director
215-573-2159
reison@upenn.edu

Elizabeth Shaw (she/her)
Administrative Assistant
215-898-5930
elizshaw@upenn.edu

The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation offices are located at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania.

3680 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA

Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Follow Us on Social Media

 Instagram

Browse the Website
  • Grants
  • Happenings
  • News
  • Resources
  • Spaces & Places
  • About
Report accessibility issues and get help
Copyright © 2025 The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation
  • Grants
  • Happenings
  • News
  • Resources
  • Spaces & Places
  • About
Close Menu.