SITES’ quarterly corner

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lotus

 Spring has sprung here in Washington, DC and we can’t help being drawn outside to experience the sights, scents, and sounds of nature. But you can bring nature indoors for your visitors through a selection of SITES exhibitions that explore our natural surroundings.

Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants

What we normally think of as pests are actually highly organized and industrious creatures. Learn about ant behaviors in this fun and informative exhibition featuring macro photographs, a cast of an ant nest, and a touchable ant model. A highly popular exhibition developed by the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, The Hidden Life of Ants will soon embark on a national tour.

Contact: Minnie Micu Russell | 202.633.3160 | russellm@si.edu

Snow-covered ponderosa pine, North Rim. Photo by Jack Dykinga.

Snow-covered ponderosa pine, North Rim. Photo by Jack Dykinga.

Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography

Ever been to the Grand Canyon? If not, you can still behold the majesty of this great American landmark through this exhibition of contemporary and archival photographs.

Contact: Ed Liskey | 202.633.3142 | liskeye@si.edu

Green Revolution

How can your visitors be more eco-friendly and what impact would such actions have on the environment? This unique exhibition is both “green” in content and delivery – we provide the design files, graphics and fabrication plans, and YOU build the exhibit. SITES thereby reduces its carbon footprint and YOU get to reduce, reuse and recycle materials from old exhibits.

Contact: Shavonne Harding | 202.633.3138 | hardings@si.edu

Transitions: Photographs by Robert Creamer

Photographer Robert Creamer used a flatbed scanner as his camera in this exhibition of large-scale images, revealing flowers and natural specimens in striking detail and depth. Only one booking period is left, so don’t miss out! Available June 12 – August 22, 2010.

Contact:  Ed Liskey | 202.633.3142 | liskeye@si.edu

The White House Garden

You’ve probably read about First Lady Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden on the South Lawn, but there’s so much more history to America’s oldest continuously landscaped garden. Learn about the development of these grounds from the 1790s to the present through reproductions of historic and contemporary photographs, maps, and correspondence.

Contact: Minnie Micu Russell | 202.633.3160 | russellm@si.edu

Rock the Green Revolution gives visitors helpful tips for how they can reduce their carbon footprints.

 

  SITES.SI.EDU

how will you commemorate the Civil War’s 150th anniversary?

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Winslow Homer's 1862 Study of a Drummer, in the collection of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Here at Affiliations, we’ve been hearing about all kinds of plans to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.   Thinking about borrowing artifacts?  Looking for a speaker for a conference or public program?  Wonder what kinds of exhibitions other museums are organizing?   Here’s what we’ve heard so far from inside the Smithsonian and around the Affiliate network.

 

For the Smithsonian, the best and first stop to view the vast and manifold collections on this topic is the Civil War@Smithsonian website.  There, artifacts from several Smithsonian museums are grouped under such topics as Slavery & Abolition, Soldiering, Life & Culture, Leaders and Abraham Lincoln, among others.  (The site even talks about the various ways that the Smithsonian itself was involved in the Civil War.) 

 

And speaking of Lincoln, you’ll find a treasure trove of resources (and possible speakers) at the Lincoln Online Conference site, sponsored by the Center for Education and Museum Studies.   Here, Smithsonian scholars discuss a wide range of issues related to our 16th President from Lincoln’s Air Force to Mathew Brady’s photographs. 

 

For even more ideas on programming or group tour itineraries, turn to the Smithsonian Associates’ Civil War Studies site.  You can also sign up here for the Civil War Studies enewsletter for up-to-date program information and original essays exploring all facets of the War.  Want to hear about the largest stash of money ever discovered?   Invite American History numismatics curator Richard Doty to talk to your audiences about confederate currency, and show a few examples from our collection.

 

If you’re an art museum, don’t despair – you might be interested in what the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum is planning to commemorate the War.  Better Angels of Our Nature: Art During the Civil War and Reconstruction will examine the impact of the Civil War and its aftermath on visual arts in America.   Information on commemorative exhibitions at the Portrait Gallery will be posted soon so watch out for that.

 

And how about in Affiliateland?  Many Affiliates are already planning commemorations of their own.  Here are some of the plans we’ve heard about so far:

 

–          the Frazier International History Museum (Louisville, KY) is planning a Civil War symposium, update to its permanent exhibition, & a traveling show called My Brother My Enemy

–          the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar (Richmond, VA) is partnering with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Alabama) on a 2011 Civil War Conference

–          the American Textile History Museum (Lowell, MA) is organizing a traveling exhibition on Civil War textiles

–          the Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) will be one of three sites to host a major Civil War exhibition and will produce two publications on photography and the role of African Americans in the Civil War, as part of PA 150,  a major statewide commemoration  

–          the African American Museum in Philadelphia (PA) has already opened the Audacious Freedoms exhibition which explores the Underground Railroad, African American soldiers in the Civil War, and other topics

–          B & O Museum (Baltimore, MD) is planning a Civil War Railroading exhibition and symposium.

 

What are you planning?  Leave us a comment and let us know.

Kudos, Affiliates! March 2010

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Way to go Affiliates!

Smithsonian Affiliations received $9,100 from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee to support a “blended learning” webinar on Universal Design in collaboration with the American Association of Museums.

 Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center (Hutchinson, Kansas) received a grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce’s Travel and Tourism Division. The $60,600 grant will help leverage an additional $208,020, to develop the center’s new interactive exhibit “Investigate Space”, moving audiences from the past to the future of space exploration.

Strategic Air and Space Museum (Ashland, Nebraska) was awarded a $200,000 Community Block Grant from Cass County to begin renovation projects at the museum.

The Getty Foundation has awarded a $3.1 million grant to support a massive, Southern California-wide series of exhibitions. The money is going to 26 regional institutions including the Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, California) to support their roles in the program that celebrates 30 “thematically linked” exhibitions — that showcase postwar art in Southern California.

The Burton D. Morgan Foundation announced that the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation (Akron, Ohio) has been awarded $25,000 towards the development of a new national Camp Invention flagship curriculum aimed at engaging children in entrepreneurship as well as innovation.

The Exelon Foundation donated $250,000 to the African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) to support educational outreach and audience development, including the creation of study guides and brochures, staffing costs, and exhibitions.

what does it mean to be human?

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Five fossil human skulls show how the shape of the face and braincase of early humans changed over the past 2.5 million years.

Five fossil human skulls show how the shape of the face and braincase of early humans changed over the past 2.5 million years.

How do you define human?!  Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of its official opening on the Mall, the National Museum of Natural History plans to open a new Hall of Human Origins based on decades of cutting-edge research by Smithsonian scientists.  Part of its broader “Human Origins: What Does it Mean to be Human?” initiative, the Hall transports visitors through a dramatic time tunnel depicting human life and environments over the past 6 million years.  The epic story of human evolution is told through the drama of climate change, and shows how survival and extinction have characterized our ancient human past. 

Forensically reconstructed faces of early humans, a display of more than 75 skulls, and an interactive 6 million-year-old family tree are highlights in the Hall.   Can’t visit?  Not to worry.  The Museum and National Geographic are publishing a book, What Does It Mean to be Human?; PBS will air a three-part series later in the year entitled, “Becoming Human: Unearthing Our Earliest Ancestors;” and the Museum will completely reproduce the exhibition through the Blue Mars virtual world website. 

As always, scholars, research and related collections are available to Affiliates for public or school programs, exhibitions, or however you spin your own human story.  Interested in collaborating?  Contact your outreach manager at affiliates@si.edu.

 So come by this spring to meet your ancient ancestors.  And be sure to wish them a happy birthday.

kudos Affiliates!

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As we closed out 2009, it’s nice to see some bright spots ringing in the New Year!  We’d like to acknowledge the following Affiliates for their hard work and success.

Smithsonian Affiliations received $8,000 from the Smithsonian Latino Center to support research trips for the curatorial staff of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (San Juan, Puerto Rico), with the goal of organizing future exhibitions featuring Smithsonian artifacts.

The North Carolina Humanities Council has awarded $7,500 to the North Carolina Museum of History (Raleigh, North Carolina) for an expansion of the exhibition “Standing on a Box: Lewis Hine’s National Child Labor Committee Photography in North Carolina.” In addition, State Employees’ Credit Union Foundation has provided $500,000 to benefit the museum’s new SECU Education Center. The museum has also received a 2009 Creative Award from the North Carolina Museums Council for its Bits of History podcast series.

Museum of Arts and Sciences (Macon, Georgia) received a $10,000 grant from College Hill Corridor to hold “Art of the Hill” a spring break day camp.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (Raleigh, North Carolina), is the recipient of a $4 million grant from the State Employees Credit Union Foundation to support the Museum’s SECU Daily Planet centerpiece of the planned Nature Research Center.

Through state grants and local donations The Hermitage (Nashville, Tennessee) will begin a $1 million facelift to repair weather damage and wear and tear.

The Challenger Space Center (Peoria, Arizona) was awarded $50,000 from the Tohono O’odham Nation in September 2009 for a grant which will be primarily used for two new exhibits, the Gemini 8 and PlayMotion. The grant money will also help bring objects from the Smithsonian to the center for the Gemini 8 exhibit. 

National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (Dubuque, Iowa) received a $500,000 earmark for exhibit fabrication and installation as part of the FY 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bill. The museum also has received a $1.23 million grant from Iowa River Enhancement Community Attraction & Tourism program to complete an outdoor plaza for their new museum expansion project.

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan) received a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the Great Lakes Folk Festival.

Joe B. Keiper has been named Executive Director of the Virginia Museum of Natural History (Martinsville, Virginia).

Mid-America Science Museum (Hot Springs, Arkansas) was awarded $286,036 from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to fund a two year planning process aimed at improving the museum’s operations and exhibits.

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services recently announced the latest recipients of their Smithsonian Community Grant program, supported by MetLife Foundation including two Affiliates:

  • Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Alabama) was awarded $4,500 to develop a teacher workshop, guest speaker, and advertising and promotion of programming related to the themes of 381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Story.
  • The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future (Dallas, Texas) received $4,600 to fund a visit from Queen Nur, and create a gallery guide insert and marketing materials for events related to the themes of Freedom’s Sisters.

Three Smithsonian Affiliates were recipients of MetLife Foundation’s Museum and Community Connections program grants. The grants were awarded to 15 museums for exhibitions, artist residencies, and other programs that extend their reach into diverse communities.

  • Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, Wyoming) ($70,000)
    For the Splendid Heritage: Perspectives on Native American Art exhibit and accompanying family days, lecture series, and artist residencies.
  • Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, California) ($50,000) 
    For Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids exhibit featuring portraits, hand-drawn statements, and stories of multiracial children in the United States.
  • Wing Luke Asian Museum (Seattle, Washington) ($50,000) 
    For the Asian Pacific Islander American Art Making: Explorations in Identity and Community initiative, which includes exhibits and corresponding public programs and workshops.

looking for something?

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Romare Bearden, Bopping at Birdland (Stomp Time), from the Jazz Series. 1979. Smithsonian American Art Museum

Romare Bearden, Bopping at Birdland (Stomp Time), from the Jazz Series, 1979. Smithsonian American Art Museum

Imagine you’re a curator at the American Jazz Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri.  You’re putting together a future exhibit and trying to find objects to include that are both new and fresh while complementing your collections.  How do you begin to explore what the Smithsonian might possibly have to contribute to this project?   Instead of having to search each individual collection at the Smithsonian you can now utilize the Collections Search Center where over 2 million object records from across the Smithsonian are catalogued.

A quick search on “Jazz” yields over 1,600 documents throughout the Smithsonian.  Perhaps you’re looking for something artistic, like any of Romare Beardon’s Jazz Series paintings, housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  Maybe you’re looking for some classic photographs of Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, or Ornette Coleman which can be found in the National Portrait Gallery.   The Postal Museum’s collection of stamps may lead you to illustrate how jazz is commemorated in this country through the issue of stamps depicting famous jazz musicians like Ella Fitzgerald or Duke Ellington.  Even the collections of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries could lead you to some materials on the life of jazz legend Nina Simone.  One of the best aspects of this search capability is that it may lead you to museums you might not have thought would have jazz-related collections.   For example, the Hirshhorn Museum’s collections focus on modern and contemporary art and sculpture, but there you find a fantastic portrait of Big Joe Turner, a blues singer from Kansas City.

Within minutes of searching the Smithsonian’s vast collections utilizing this one-stop searching environment, you have found sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs, interviews, sound recordings, sheet music, stamps, medals, letters and correspondence – all pertaining to jazz and legendary jazz performers.

So… try it out!  And let us know what you find.

Included in the Collections Search Center are records from the following Smithsonian units:

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
National Air and Space Museum
National Museum of American Indian
National Museum of Natural History
National Portrait Gallery
National Postal Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Archives of American Art
Archives of American Gardens
Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives
Human Studies Film Archives
National Anthropological Archives
Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Smithsonian Institution Archives
Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory – Chandra X-ray Observatory

Thanks to Christopher Teed, Program Coordinator at the Visitor Information Center in the Smithsonian Castle for this guest post.