Partnership Advances Sound-Based Storytelling
The Lab @ The Peale is pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with Earprint LLC and immersive media pioneer C. Jason Reinier to explore the power of sound as a tool for storytelling, interpretation, and community engagement.
The partnership marks an important milestone in the growth of The Lab @ The Peale, Baltimore’s Center for Cultural Innovation. Established to advance digital storytelling, immersive technologies, workforce development, and cross-sector collaboration, The Lab serves as a space where new ideas can be tested, refined, and brought into public practice.
For more than three decades, Jason Reinier and Earprint have helped some of the world’s leading museums and cultural organizations create immersive and interactive visitor experiences. Their clients have included institutions such as the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, SFMOMA, and many others.
Earprint is dedicated to not only telling stories of people and places,...but also encouraging listening in new ways to stories, soundscapes, conversations, and dialogue with each other. This partnership gives us the opportunity to explore and celebrate current sonic stories as well as the layers of history in places all over the Baltimore area. We hope to focus on creating an innovative space for people to talk and listen within the museum, and throughout the community.
Now, Earprint is bringing that expertise to Baltimore.
As part of this collaboration, Earprint will help The Peale develop a dedicated audio storytelling and oral history recording studio that will serve as the foundation for a growing body of community-based storytelling initiatives. The first major project will support The Peale’s recently funded Life in Baltimore initiative, made possible through support from the Maryland Center for History and Culture.
Through this project, The Peale will work with artists, residents, historians, musicians, and community members to record oral histories that document Baltimore’s neighborhoods, creative communities, lived experiences, and cultural heritage. These stories will become part of a growing digital archive that preserves Baltimore’s voices for future generations.
The new recording studio will also support podcast production, artist interviews, educational programming, community storytelling projects, and future immersive exhibitions that integrate sound, voice, and narrative in innovative ways.
For The Peale, the partnership reflects a broader belief that stories are not only told through objects, photographs, and exhibitions—they are also carried through voices, memories, music, and the sounds of everyday life.
“Sound is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools available to museums today,” said John Suau, Executive Director of The Peale and Lead of The Lab @ The Peale. “Every neighborhood has a sound. Every community has voices that deserve to be heard. Through this partnership with Jason and Earprint, we’re creating new ways to preserve, interpret, and share Baltimore’s stories.”
The collaboration will also explore future opportunities in immersive audio, spatial sound design, public art installations, podcasting, mobile interpretation, and emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality.
Looking ahead, The Peale and Earprint envision Baltimore as a living laboratory for sound-centered storytelling—where history, culture, memory, and innovation converge.
This partnership is only the beginning.
As The Lab @ The Peale continues to grow, it will bring together innovators from across disciplines to help museums and cultural organizations imagine new ways of engaging audiences, preserving community memory, and telling stories that matter.
To learn more about The Lab @ The Peale and upcoming storytelling initiatives, visit ThePeale.org.
