The goals of the exhibition were to display a collection of 84 Russian icons dating from 1650 to 1918, to educate the public about the historical significance of the Russian icon and to explain the various production techniques used to create them.

Our solution was to group the icons together on two 40-foot walls—the way icons were traditionally hung in churches and homes. In front of each icon wall is a floor-to-ceiling clear Plexiglas wall, silk-screened with a block of text outlined in the shape of the icon beyond it. The viewer is able to read the text on the Plexiglas wall and look at the icon on the wall behind it. The viewer is also able to go around the Plexiglas wall and experience the icons with no interpretive text. The outline of each icon on the Plexiglas creates “windows” for the viewer to look through, based on the traditional concept that icons are “Windows into Heaven.”