Oh, Snap!

New ‘selfie museum’ in Concord celebrates the 1990s

- ANDY SMITH

TWENTY-TWO MILLION AMERICANS lost their jobs during the first two months of the pandemic. Jessica Jones, a 35-year-old Baltimore native who worked for MetLife in Charlotte, was one of them. “I said then that I will never lose another job,” she says in April, “because I will be the job.”

Jones had noticed the success of so-called “selfie museums”—art installations specifically designed as social media photo backdrops—and decided to dedicate one to her favorite decade: the 1990s. She began a pilot project for friends and family at her own 800-square-foot home in Charlotte, complete with wall-to-ceiling murals of ’90s pop-culture mementos from Rugrats cartoons to Blockbuster VHS tapes. The most popular mural, painted by local artist Enigma Productions: “The Fresh Prince of Charlotte,” inspired by the Will Smith sitcom.

Jones opens the fully realized The Home of the ’90s Museum, a 4,000-square foot, 12-room venue in Concord, on July 3. It inhabits a commercial building at 404 Winecoff School Road that previously served as a pet spa, musical instrument dealer, and thrift store. Now, it’s packed with ’90s memorabilia, furniture, and murals by Inigma, DeNeer Davis, MyrrhMadeArt, Maargechaarge, and Tajmah Allison, among others. As Jones walks me through the new museum via Zoom, I catch glimpses of the exhibitions: a Kool-Aid Man bursting into a mock living room; a bar dedicated to Fruit Stripe gum; and graffitied phrases like “Boo-Yah,” “Fresh,” and “Dope.”