Public Commissions
Scroll Space
National Scrollathon: Texas and Georgia
2019
Commissioned by: Dallas Museum of Art and High Museum of Art, for speechless: different by design
Locations: Dallas, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia
Medium: Fiber, rubber bands, pins, ink, glue, paint, wood
Dimensions: Scroll Space: Dallas, 10 × 10 × 4 ft; Signature Plate, 22 ½ × 44 in.
Photographs: Courtesy of the artists; Dallas Museum of Art; High Museum of Art
Created in: Dallas, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia
Artists’ Registration Numbers:
Collaborative Masterworks: 2019.019.001–2019.019.265
Mini Portrait Murals: 2022.180.001 (Dallas), 2022.181.001 (Atlanta)
Signature Plate: 2023.104.001
Exhibition History: speechless: different by design, Dallas Museum of Art and High Museum of Art, 2019–2020
each contributing personal scrolls through guided workshops. These contributions became the material foundation of Scroll Space, a shared environment rooted in collective authorship and embodied experience.
At the heart of the installation were its interior walls: one constructed entirely from scrolls made in Dallas, the other from scrolls created in Atlanta. Each wall functioned as a Collaborative Masterwork in its own right, while together forming a unified spatial experience. Following the conclusion of the exhibition, the Dallas wall was acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Atlanta wall by the High Museum of Art, entering their permanent collections as enduring records of community participation and shared making.
Commission Overview
Co-commissioned by the Dallas Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art for speechless: different by design, Scroll Space emerged from a visionary curatorial invitation by Sarah Schleuning, whose leadership shaped the project from its earliest conception. The exhibition—groundbreaking in its focus on sensory experience, accessibility, and new models of engagement—provided a fertile context for expanding Scrollathon into a fully immersive architectural environment.
Rather than creating separate works for each institution, Scroll Space was conceived as a single collaborative structure built across two states. Steven and William Ladd led large-scale Scrollathon programs in both Dallas and Atlanta, engaging a total of 1,326 participants,
Artistic Approach
Scroll Space was built through an iterative, human-scaled process that mirrors the principles of Scrollathon itself. Participants selected two fabric trimmings from a curated palette and tightly wrapped them around a small wooden dowel, gradually layering material through repetition and intention. Each scroll was secured by hand and marked with ink—sometimes with detailed drawings, sometimes with a word, symbol, or name—transforming simple gestures into deeply personal expressions.
This project also marked a significant deepening of the Ladds’ engagement with neuroscience and cognition. Conversations initiated during Scroll Space—particularly in Dallas—directly led to their subsequent collaboration with the Center for BrainHealth, where researchers and participants explored how repetitive, mindful artmaking activates neural pathways, supports emotional regulation, and fosters connection. In this way, Scroll Space became both a sculptural environment and a living research question: how collective creativity shapes human experience.
As the scrolls accumulated, they were placed into modular wooden trays, slowly filling the interior surfaces of the structure. The resulting environment was tactile, rhythmic, and immersive—less an object to be viewed than a space to be entered. Color, density, and variation emerged organically, shaped by hundreds of hands working independently yet toward a shared whole.
Engagement and Impact
Across both cities, participants included students, educators, seniors, artists, individuals with disabilities, and community members of all ages. In Dallas, 714 participants engaged through groups such as the Center for BrainHealth, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas, DMA Meaningful Moments, and Project Transformation North Texas. In Atlanta, 612 participants joined through organizations including the Center for the Visually Impaired, Global Village Project, the Department of Juvenile Justice, and numerous public schools.
The workshops emphasized accessibility, care, and agency—demonstrating that art can function as a shared language beyond words. Participants often remarked on the meditative quality of the process and the power of seeing their individual contribution become part of something far larger. Through making together, strangers became collaborators, and the act of participation itself became the artwork’s most enduring impact.
Context and Legacy
Scroll Space (Dallas & Atlanta) represents a pivotal chapter in the evolution of Scrollathon. It was the first time the project operated simultaneously across multiple states within a single commission, establishing a framework for national-scale collaboration that would soon be realized more fully.
Today, with the Dallas wall set to be reinstalled as part of the National Scrollathon’s Semiquincentennial exhibition, Scroll Space continues to evolve—its material form remaining constant while its context expands. What began as an immersive environment for speechless now stands as an early architectural expression of America’s Cultural Project: a structure built by many hands, across many places, held together by shared intention.
The project also served as a direct conceptual and logistical stepping stone to Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow at the John F. Kennedy Center later that same year. Many of the questions raised here—about scale, permanence, neuroscience, and national reach—were carried forward into those conversations. In retrospect, Scroll Space marks the moment when Scrollathon began to function not just as a program, but as a national model.
Community Groups
Atlanta
Bolton Elementary School
Boyd Elementary School
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta – Chamblee
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta – Warren
Cary Reynolds Elementary School
Center for the Visually Impaired
Common Good Atlanta
Department of Juvenile Justice
Global Village Project
High Museum of Art
Langston Hughes High School
Tapestry Charter School
Sponsors
speechless: different by design, including this Scrollathon, was co-organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art. Initial funding was generously provided by the Wish Foundation. The exhibition was sponsored by Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Bank of America, City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, Knoll, Texas Commission on the Arts, Texas Instruments, The Bonnie Pitman Education Endowment to Do Something New, and WFAA.
Special Thanks
With deep appreciation to Sarah Schleuning, Agustín Arteaga, Rand Suffolk, Kevin W. Tucker, Audette Rackley, Bonnie Pitman, Daniel Krawczyk, Jenny McGlothlin, Linda Thibodeau, Mary Ann Bonet Guardia, Monica Obniski, Virginia Shearer, Tandra Allen, Tina Fletcher, and the teams at the Dallas Museum of Art and High Museum of Art.
Acknowledgments
Gratitude to Cristina Grajales Gallery; the Scrollathon team; National Scrollathon Interns and Fellows; Timothy Lewis and Babette Husson; Charles and Barbara Ladd; Mari and Gary Teeter; Claude Skelton and Gina Falcone Skelton; and the team at Lowenstein Sandler LLP.
Dallas:
Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas – Mesquite
Center for BrainHealth
Connecting Point of Park Cities
Dallas Museum of Art Community
DMA Meaningful Moments
DMA Teen Ambassador Program
Fretz Recreation Center
Harbor Chase of the Park Cities
Martin Weiss Recreation Center
Park in the Woods Recreation Center
Project Transformation – North Texas Resource Center
The Stewpot Art Department
UTD Callier Center for Communication Disorders
WellMed Charitable Foundation Senior Activity Center