Podcast and News Features
ABC 7 News Black History Month Feature
Interviewed by Chicago Entertainment Reporter, Hosea Sanders for ABC 7 News Black History Month segment highlighting my career as a local documentary filmmaker and multimedia producer.
SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL - CHICAGO SPOTLIGHT
“Growing up, native Chicagoan Latoya Flowers always liked science and had dreams of working in a museum, but she had no idea that her path of study would eventually lead her there. After graduating from SVA, however, she found that her documentary-film experience made her well suited for producing factual yet captivating multimedia installations. So she brought her skills to Museum Campus, a park on Lake Michigan that is home to three of Chicago’s natural science museums: the Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History and Shedd Aquarium. Flowers first worked at the planetarium for several years. In 2017, she became the exhibition media producer at the Field Museum next door, and has had a hand in all of the museum’s major exhibitions since.” Michelle Mackin, School of Visual Arts
“One of Flowers’ first tasks at the museum was a lofty one. The institution’s pride and joy, “SUE,” one of the world’s largest, most complete and best preserved T. rex skeletons, was being moved to a new room within the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet exhibit, in which Flowers was to create an immersive experience. In late 2018, after a year and a half of research, prototyping and implementation, the museum rolled out Flowers’ production, which utilizes projection mapping to highlight specific bones, while a recorded narration covers topics such as how many bones in the skeleton are from the original fossil (90 percent), which ribs had been broken and healed, and how scientists were able to discover how SUE may have died (a jaw infection).” - Michelle Mackin, School of Visual Arts
Projected futures PODCAST
As a multimedia producer at the Field Museum in Chicago, Latoya Flowers creates a lot of media to support exhibits. But none is as big literally or figuratively as the projection mapped show she designed for “SUE,” the museum’s prized Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil. Listen to our interview exploring what it took to bring cutting-edge projection technology to a jurassic period artifact.
InstaLive with the Field Museum showing a demo of how I created the SUE light show using projection mapping and talking about my role as a Exhibition Media Producer.
Adler Staff Star Feature
While working as a Digital Content Producer for the Adler Planetarium exhibitions, I was featured as an Adler Staff Star in their monthly employee achievement publication.
What do you enjoy most about working at the Adler?
I love that I’m able to use my background in documentary filmmaking as a tool to create space science content. I produce and edit videos for the Adler Planetarium’s exhibitions and website. Working with the Far Horizons, Astronomy, and Collection teams is a fun experience because I get to learn something new for each project. I definitely have my dream job.
What’s your fondest Adler memory?
Working on the ‘Mission Moon’ exhibition is one of my fondest memories. I had the privilege of editing a series of short videos, featuring archival footage from Apollo 8, Apollo 11, and the Gemini Space Missions for the exhibition. It took several months to screen the archival footage and structure the edits as if you were watching the missions in real-time. Meeting the astronauts and mission control crew at the Adler’s 45th Apollo XIII Anniversary was an awesome experience.
What is the most memorable thing you have done during your time at the Adler?
I enjoy attending the Far Horizons missions as a photographer to capture the high-altitude balloon launches. It’s awesome to see kids and adults get excited while tracking the balloon for retrieval.
CBS 2 News carl cotton exhibition
Featured on CBS News giving a tour of the Carl Cotton Exhibition for the Field Museum Black History Month celebration.
FOX 32 NEWS - Still Searching documentary chronicles stories of Chicagos missing Black women and girls
Featured on FOX 32 News discussing the Still Searching Project and upcoming documentary.
half rez 8 - guest speaker
Invited as a guest speaker for Half Rez, the biggest motion graphics event in the Midwest. I presented the creative process behind the SUE Experience light show. Half Rez is a conference designed to gather industry professionals from all over the globe to discuss and share techniques, technology, platforms, and workflows through inspiring keynote speakers and skill-building training sessions.
Crash Pad podcast
From Audio, Projection-Mapping, to Film Making. Latoya is a Senior Multimedia Creative at the Field Museum in Chicago, where she collaborates with exhibit designers, content developers, illustrators, motion graphic artists, lighting designers, and music composers to create immersive multimedia experiences for traveling and permanent exhibitions. She created a projection mapping installation for the Wild Color exhibition the SUE Experience, highlighting scientific discoveries on the world’s most complete T.rex skeleton. She’s currently directing and producing her first feature-length documentary Still Searching supported by Hulu, Kartemquin Films and Still I Rise Films.
Mood Boosting Museum Artifacts: Interview
CreativeStack’s Kirsten Nelson spoke with Latoya Flowers, Documentary Filmmaker and Senior Multimedia Creative with the Field Museum in Chicago, about the narrative and media design of the Wild Color exhibition.
BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO-‘Still Searching’ Documentary Tells Stories Of Chicago’s Missing Black Women And Girls Through Art
Block Club Chicago featuring the Still Searching Project and documentary.
“Meet Latoya Charisse Flowers-Rudd, a multimedia producer who truly works across an incredible range of media: documentary filmmaking, photography, projection mapping, motion design, and more. She's currently on the Exhibitions team at the Field Museum and is passionate about finding creative, untraditional solutions to communicate museum content. Read more here about how she developed her skill set and see some of her amazing work!”
Carve Capture, a collective comprising Latoya Flowers (MFA 2012 Social Documentary Film) and Warren Rudd, created this projection-mapping installation for Juneteenth 2020.
WGN 9 NEWS -Chicago artists discuss telling stories of missing Black women and girls in Chicago
Featured on WGN News discussing the making of the Still Searching documentary.
TEDXQUINCY- STILL SEARCHING
In a powerful and moving piece for TEDxQuincy, Artist Damon Lamar Reed and filmmaker Latoya Charisse Flowers presented, “Still Searching: Chicago’s Missing Black Women and Girls.”
Their piece for TEDxQuincyStudio serves as a sizzle reel to the upcoming feature length documentary that follows Mr. Reed, a Chicago hip-hop artist and muralist, has been creating a vivid series of portraits titled “The Searching Project” of missing Black women and girls in the Chicagoland area for the past two decades. In the film, we’ll hear why he started painting these missing women and girls, his creative artistry and process behind each painting, and how he uses his artistic expression to keep their memories alive, in hopes of finding each missing victim. We’ll also hear about Ms. Flowers and her creative process for capturing the project and raising awareness around this important topic.
ArtTown podcast series
“Imagine having your dream job and being able explore and experiment with your work the way you want to. That’s the story of Latoya Flowers from Chicago Field Museum whose versatility is unparallel. She isn’t just an exhibitions media producer, she is a Documentary Filmmaker, Projection Mapping Artist and a Photographer. Latoya started her journey with the Adler Planetarium and now creates immersive experiences with projection mapping for traveling and permanent exhibitions at the Field Museum. She has worked on a fantastic range of media projects and is renowned for producing a light show for the SUE Experience highlighting scientific discoveries of the world’s most complete T-Rex skeleton. This is Latoya Flowers, full of inspiration, full of cheer, full of passion brought to you in this podcast.” Parth Pawar, ArtTown Podcast
Field Museum Learning Connection Career Chat
Interviewed by the Field Museum Learning Connection team about my career as an Exhibition Media Producer. The career chat was live streamed to Chicago Public Schools.
THEMED ENTERTAINMENT TV Special - Black History Month
Featured on Themed Entertainment TV to discuss my role as a Exhibition Media Producer at the Field Museum and Black representation in the museum industry.
NEC PROJECTORS BRING A DINOSAUR’S WORLD TO LIFE IN CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
Flowers added that while the media and content production team had about a year and a half of lead time to prototype, animate and storyboard, the projection mapping still proved to be tricky because of the nature of the specimen."Some of the bones were so thin – like the gastralia, or belly ribs – that it was a challenge to light them," she said. "We had a hard time getting the projection mapping to show up on these small, thin bones, and had to bring in additional lighting to highlight them." And, of course, everything had to be scientifically accurate.
SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL - ALUMNI NEWS
The Still Searching documentary was featured in the SVA Visual Arts Journal Fall/Winter 2022 edition.