Following the Kennedy Center exhibition, Steven and William Ladd launch a three year Time Capsule Project inviting participants to contribute their stories.

In 2025, the Creightonian covered the Scrollathon, a nationwide, collaborative art project led by Steven and William Ladd, a pair of brothers based in New York. The project, which spanned all 50 states and territories and collected art from each community – handmade and placed in murals – was set to reveal the total project at the Kennedy Center this past year, just in time for the 250th celebration of the fourth of July.  

“It was surreal, you know,” Ladd said via Zoom interview.  

He was back in New York, working in a school and continuing the project that he and his brother had been developing for the past year.    

On the Scrollathon website, a video of the exhibition shows how the work was presented. A series of pillars each proudly showing displaying the scrolls from each state alongside the portraits of the people who made the scrolls, contributing to what the website calls the Collaborative Masterwork. Gallery-walkers can stroll through the scrolls and see everyone who made up the project, taking in the full picture of who makes up America.  

“The real surreal moment was actually seeing the three 53-foot trucks actually pull up to the Kennedy Center,” Ladd said. “Just getting it there, that was the moment. Because it was like, ‘Oh my God. It’s here now.’ Like, there’s no take backs.”  

But even if there were no takebacks, there were some roadblocks that changed the logistics of the project. During the course of the year between the Scrollathon’s appearance at the Josyln Art Museum back in September of 2025 and now, some political developments put into question if the project could be hosted at all.  

Following President Donald Trump’s desire to rename the Kennedy Center after himself, talks were put to close the building down in July of 2026 for renovations. Afterwords, according to a July reporting from PBS, there was a “wave of cancellations” from entertainers who were set to perform at the center. A judge ultimately blocked the renovations and the name change, but for a moment, it seemed to onlookers that the Scrollathon was set to unravel.  

“We never even thought about it,” Ladd said, however. “There was never really any doubt that it was going to happen,” he repeated, sure in the project and in the moment of questioning.  

While he acknowledged that there were people questioning the project at the time, there were enough people who believed in the project, himself included, to keep it going.  

Thanks to their perseverance, there were forty total states represented at the opening of the exhibition.  

“This is a project about America,” he said. “It’s about everybody and including everybody who wants to be included.”  

The work of the Ladd brothers continues even now.  

“We’re about moving forward and making things happen. And now we did it and we’re like, ‘How can we do it again and make it even better?’” Ladd said. “One thing we kept hearing along the way was, ‘How can I get involved?’”  

For those reading and wondering that exact question, Ladd has an answer: their new Time Capsule Project, which officially launched on October 15 this year. This project is available to anyone who searches the Scrollathon website, allowing them to add a part of their story to the next collaborative masterwork, which will come together over the course of three years.  

The new initiative builds on the original project’s goal of bringing people together through art and personal storytelling. Participants will have another opportunity to contribute their experiences to a larger collection representing communities across the country. The project also gives the Ladd brothers a way to continue expanding the collaborative work beyond its initial exhibition. 

“We want to come back [to Omaha],” Ladd said. “The Joslyn was amazing.”  

As the Time Capsule Project moves forward, the brothers hope to continue creating opportunities for people from different backgrounds to share their stories. In doing so, they are keeping the spirit of the original Scrollathon alive while giving even more people a chance to become part of the collaborative masterwork.