2011 affiliations conference: let’s eat!

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More and more museums are exploring ways to use food and foodways as an extension of their missions, and as an additional pathway to community engagement.  (Here’s an example, and what some Affiliates are doing.)  Whether exploring historic and cultural traditions around food or promoting an agenda of sustainability, food is increasingly appearing in the repertoire of museum programming. And we know this issue carries national importance, as the American Association of Museums recently announced its collaborative proposal for Let’s Move Museums and Gardens as a way to address the First Lady’s focus on healthy, active lifestyles that incorporate good food.

At the National Museum of the American Indian, the Mitsitam Café (mitsitam means “Let’s Eat” in the local Piscataway and Delaware languages) is a prime example of how food allows visitors to “experience Native cultures and indigenous foods in ways that appeal to all the senses, transcending the limits of a museum exhibition,”  according to Museum Director, Kevin Gover.  Mitsitam Executive Chef Richard Hetzler researched indigenous foodways from five general cultural landscapes in North and South America as represented in the Museum’s collections.  The result is a seasonal menu (the entire café changes some of its dishes 4 times per year) that reflects the food available to Native Americans, and their attitudes toward preparing it.  Visitors see their tamales being made by hand and salmon roasting on an open fire pit – both ancient Native techniques.  The menus are updated and refreshed for the 21st century palette, but the food also finds its way to interpretative carts, festivals and public programs.  One cannot help feeling the connection to native culture that flows uninterrupted from the galleries to the café.

Using food as an interpretation tool will be the topic of a session at the annual Smithsonian Affiliations Conference this year, and what better time to do it than over breakfast?  NMAI Chef Richard Hetzler will prepare a dish from his internationally-acclaimed Mitsitam cookbook, while discussing the Museum’s philosophy toward foodways education.  Other Affiliates who are exploring this topic are welcome to share their programs at the session as well.  And of course, we’ll all enjoy a buffet of Native breakfast foods to get our creative juices flowing. 

Bon appétit!

To see the full agenda and to register for the 2011 Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, click here.

announcing the 2011 affiliations conference keynote speaker

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CLAUDINE K. BROWN NAMED KEYNOTE SPEAKER OF 2011 AFFILIATIONS NATIONAL CONFERENCE

Claudine Brown, Assistant Secretary for Education and Access

We are pleased to announce that Claudine K. Brown, the Smithsonian’s Assistant Secretary for Education and Access will provide the keynote speech on June 14 at the 2011 Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference, underscoring the centrality of education and the role of partnerships in advancing the Smithsonian’s mission.  Appointed in June 2010 to this newly established position, Brown serves as the overall leader of educational initiatives at the Smithsonian and coordinates the efforts of 32 education-based offices in museums and science centers.

Brown had been the director of the arts and culture program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York since 1995.   In 1990, she joined the Smithsonian to serve as director of the National African-American Museum Project and in1991 she also became the deputy assistant secretary for the arts and humanities, developing policy for many Smithsonian museums.

Prior to her earlier work at the Smithsonian, Brown held several positions at The Brooklyn Museum:  museum educator, manager of school and community programs, and assistant director for government and community programs.  For more than 20 years, Brown served as a faculty advisor and instructor in the Leadership in Museum Education Program at Bank Street Graduate School of Museum Education in New York City, giving her the opportunity to work with some of the pre-eminent museum evaluators, educators and thinkers in the field.

Following Brown’s speech, conference attendees and Smithsonian educators will join in a series of roundtable discussions to identify potential areas of collaboration.

View the Smithsonian Affiliations Conference web page for further announcements.

kudos affiliates! march 2011

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As winter thaws into spring (hopefully!), it’s great to see these accomplishments in Affiliateland.

The Walmart Foundation has donated $38,838 to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. The funds will be used to improve its live animal and marine life departments.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation has awarded the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture $30,000 in funding for an upcoming series at the museum titled “Visions and Voices.” This grant is for the exhibit, “Ric Gendron: A Good Journey,” which will pair Gendron, one of the region’s top local artists, with Oregon writer Elizabeth Woody.

The Massachusetts Cultural Council announced Plimoth Plantation as a winner in the Creative Learning category of the 2011 Commonwealth Awards, honoring exceptional achievement in the arts, humanities, and sciences. The museum will bring a love of Shakespeare to the town of Plymouth and surrounding area with the innovative program: “One Play, One Community: Romeo and Juliet.”

where will the pavilion go next?

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The Smithsonian’s magnificent Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion will end its visit to Flushing Town Hall in New York City in September 2011.  Would your Affiliate like to be the next stop on its tour through America?

The Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion is a 1:5 scale replica of the Wan Chun Ting pavilion that stands in the Imperial Garden of the Forbidden City in Beijing.  An example of classical Chinese architecture, the Pavilion was carved in China in 2007 by artisans of the China Red Sandalwood Museum, who then donated it to the Museum Conservation Institute at the Smithsonian.  Demonstrating traditional Chinese techniques of carving, the richly-detailed Pavilion is made of 3,000 hand-carved pieces of red sandalwood, one of the hardest woods in the world, and is constructed using mortise-and-tenon joinery.  There are no nails holding this magnificent model together.

Students learn from the Pavilion in Peoria, IL

The Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion has already made three stops in Affiliateland.  After its exhibition at the Smithsonian in 2007, it traveled to the Lakeview Museum in Peoria, Illinois.  Accompanied by Chinese-specific programs including calligraphy classes, tai chi and tea ceremony demonstrations, and exhibits of Chinese art, the Pavilion drew a truly international audience, including the Chinese Ambassador to the United States.  (Read more about its Peoria life in The Affiliate newsletter article.)

It then traveled to the Irving Art Center in Irving, Texas, where it was stunningly displayed in the museum’s lobby.  In October, the Pavilion traveled to Flushing Town Hall in Queens, located in one of New York City’s largest Asian communities.  Complemented by a wide range of Asian-specific performances and art exhibitions, the orchestrated construction of the Pavilion by Smithsonian conservator Don Williams and his team of volunteers is a show unto itself.  This spectacular artifact will be ready to travel to a new location in September 2011.

an overhead view in Irving, TX

If you are interested in pursuing a loan of the Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion, here’s what you should know:

– The Pavilion is approximately 10’ wide x 10’ deep  x 10’ high.
– The Pavilion weighs 1.5 tons when assembled.
– The Pavilion comes in 14 large, specially-designed cases which must be stored during its installation.
– Text panels in English and Chinese accompany the Pavilion.
– The Pavilion must sit on a simple platform (12-18” high) which is usually built on-site.

– Contact your National Outreach Manager as soon as possible to discuss logistics!  affiliates@si.edu

Complete information about the Pavilion, including text from the panels and images, can be found at https://www.si.edu/MCI/pavilion/pavilion.html.

its current home in Flushing, NY

affiliates help smithsonian and MIT solve mysteries

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Helping the Smithsonian solve a mystery about a fictitious environmental disaster – doesn’t that sound like fun? 

A preview look at the Vanished site, a curated alternate-reality game

Smithsonian scientists have teamed up with MIT’s Education Arcade to engage middle-school students to do just that, in an online alternate-reality game.   Vanished will kick off on April 4 at vanished.mit.edu.  In the course of 8 weeks, students ages 11-14 from all over the country will collect clues on- and off-line, and form a scientific community to help Smithsonian scientists test hypotheses and solve this mystery.  Thanks to the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, a range of scientists from entomologists to paleontologists will host videoconference sessions with players, mentoring them through their scientific discoveries.  (Read more in this USA Today article.)

Where will students collect the real data from their hometowns, to share with Smithsonian scientists?  Many will look to their local Affiliate for clues.  According to MIT game designer Caitlin Feeley, “a kid in Kansas could go to the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson and bring back information on space exploration, and a kid in North Carolina could go to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, walk through their incredible diorama, and bring back information on how a lost species massively affected an entire ecosystem.”  In fact, 17 Affiliate museums are partnering with the Smithsonian and MIT to offer clue-gathering opportunities for gamers.  “The Aerospace Museum of California is excited to partner with the Smithsonian and MIT in this unique educational opportunity,” says Linda Payne, the Museum’s Education Director.  “We are certain that Vanished will stimulate students’ interest in scientific exploration and problem solving.”

The game, made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, hopes to capitalize on the popularity of shows such as CSI to offer a specific kind of scientific problem-solving for students.  “The kids are actually doing science,” says Elizabeth Cottrell, Smithsonian geologist and director of the Smithsonian’s global volcanism program.  “They are going to have the ‘Ah, I get it,”. moment for themselves.”

Thanks to the Smithsonian Affiliates who will help students find those “Ah hah” moments… right in their own neighborhoods.

Affiliate partners for Vanished:
Mid-America Science Museum, Hot Springs, AR
Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science, Tallahassee, FL
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY
Kansas Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS
The Museum of Flight, Seattle, WA
Schiele Museum of Natural History, Gastonia, NC
Aerospace Museum of California, McClellan, CA
Putnam Museum, Davenport, IA
Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, PA
South Florida Museum, Bradenton, FL
Virginia Museum of Natural History, Martinsville, VA
Kenosha Public Museum, Kenosha, WI
Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT
Museum of Dentistry, Baltimore, MD
South Carolina State Museum, Columbia, SC

“Vanished” in the news:
USA Today: Interactive game ‘Vanished’ doubles as an educational tool

ArtDaily.org: Smithsonian and MIT Partner to Turn Kids into Scientific Investigators

from airmail to email

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Centennial Celebration of the Wiseman Cook Flight with Smithsonian Curators

Wiseman Cooke Plane on display at the National Postal Museum.

Centennial celebrations don’t happen every day.  When the Sonoma County Museum, an Affiliate in Santa Rosa, California, set out to host an event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first airmail flight, they turned to the Smithsonian curators who care for the event’s primary artifact, the plane that made that journey a century ago.  Together, they’ve organized a program that will connect online viewers and live audiences at the Sonoma County Museum and the National Air and Space Museum to celebrate this event.

The flight was piloted on February 17 and 18, 1911 by Fred Wiseman.  Wiseman took off from Petaluma, California and flew 25 miles to Santa Rosa with three letters.  Wiseman’s plane is part of the collections of the National Air and Space Museum and is currently on display at the National Postal Museum.  The event carries even more significance to the local community because the Sonoma County Museum is located in a building that was the Santa Rosa post office in 1911. 

During the program, Tom Crouch, senior curator, aeronautics, National Air and Space Museum and Nancy Pope, curator and historian at the National Postal Museum will share their knowledge about the flight.  Tom will discuss the historical context of the plane and Nancy will talk about its significance to postal history. 

Please join us on Saturday, February 19th at 2pm Eastern Standard Time at the Smithsonian’s Ustream channel, where online viewers can watch the lecture and email questions to both curators.   If you would like to organize a similar distance learning program, contact your national outreach manager.