Thanks again to our fab-five Affiliate partners who engaged their local communities during the National Youth Summit: 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides. Our recent blog post highlighted what happened before the event, but now you can get a look at what happened during it through our Smithsonian Affiliates Flicker group album! Want to add your photos? Join our Smithsonian Affiliates- National Youth Summit: Freedom Rides group and add them!
Smithsonian Affiliates across the country are bringing Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibitions to their communities this spring. Here’s what’s opening at an Affiliate in the coming months:
This 1929 photo shows P.E. Allen of the White House police force, trainer Harry Waters, and some of the White House dogs, although not Herbert Hoover’s personal favorite, King Tut. Photo by Herbert E. French, National Photo Company. Library of Congress.
March 19- May 29, 2011
Orange County Regional History Center(Orlando, Florida)
The Working White House: Two Centuries of Traditions and Memories
Two centuries of stories and traditions are preserved in this exhibition, developed with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the White House Historical Association. Archival and contemporary images, videos, as well as fascinating oral histories of workers who have served presidents from William Taft through George W. Bush convey the occupational culture of this private yet public place.
Judith Jamison in “Cry,” 1976, Max Waldman (1919 - 1981), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Carol Greunke, Max Waldman Archives.
March 26 – June 19, 2011
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits
This inaugural exhibition of photographic portraits of African Americans explores the medium’s influential role in shaping public identity and individual notions of race and status over the past 150 years. The portrait subjects come from many sectors of the African American community, from Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Edmonia Lewis, to W.E.B. Du Bois, Lorraine Hansberry, and Wynton Marsalis.
Portrait from Becoming American: Teenagers and Immigration. Photographs © Barbara Beirne
April 23 – July 17, 2011
The Charlotte Museum of History (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Becoming American: Teenagers & Immigration, Photographs by Barbara Beirne
In many ways, ours is a nation of immigrants–hungry for freedom, peace, and the opportunity promised by the American Dream. The realities of that immigrant experience are most vividly read in the faces and words of young people who have made this journey. In this exhibition, each sensitive portrait is paired with excerpts from Beirne’s interviews with teens from Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. All of their stories are unique, and we read in every quote–and in every face–the individual struggles and hopes of “becoming American.”
Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants.
April 30 – July 10, 2011
South Florida Museum and Parker Manatee Aquarium (Bradenton, Florida)
Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants
Small yet abundant, with complex and wildly diverse lifestyles, ants are everywhere, living lives mostly hidden from our view. What if we could see into their world. on their level? What would we learn? What parallels could we draw between them and us? Now, with the aid of a macro lens and the insights of ant expert and photographer Dr. Mark Moffett, SITES and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History present the world of ants.
And you can still catch these exhibitions at an Affiliate in your neighborhood:
Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente, at Challenger Learning Center of Arizona (Peoria, Arizona), through April 17, 2011.
Jim Henson’s Fantastic World, at Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences (Peoria, Illinois), through May 1, 2011.
Find a Smithsonian Affiliate in your neighborhood here.
Find more Smithsonian traveling exhibitions and programs here.
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.
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!
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
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
2011 is a big year for organizations–20 at the latest count–celebrating their 10th anniversary as Smithsonian Affiliates. To honor these Affiliates we’ll be blogging monthly about each one as they reach this milestone.
Two unique Smithsonian Affiliates celebrated 10 years of collaborating with the Smithsonian in February- Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (Seattle, WA) and Kona Historical Society (Captain Cook, HI).
Pictured: Joshua Heim, Exhibits Developer and King Lau, Youth Participant, of the Wing Luke Asian Museum YouthCAN program with Michelle Obama. Courtesy IMLS.
Seattle, Washington, is home to the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, better known as “The Wing,” the nation’s only museum devoted to the Asian Pacific American experience. Active participants in Smithsonian Magazine’s Museum Day each year, The Wing has also included programming from The Smithsonian Associates and brought Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service exhibitions to their community. Recently, during a White House ceremony, First Lady Michelle Obama honored The Wing’s YouthCAN after school program with a prestigious national award for its impact in engaging young people in the arts and humanities.
Kona Coffee Living History Farm, courtesy Kona Historical Society.
Did you know the Smithsonian has Affiliates in Hawaii? The Kona Historical Society in Captain Cook, Hawaii, also celebrates its 10th anniversary in February. The society maintains two historic sites and the Jean Greenwell Archives, which boasts the largest photograph collection on the Big Island; over 140 maps; many rare and out-of-print books; historical records including manuscripts, pamphlets and oral history interviews; and films and videotapes of Kona. The Society is in the process of raising $1.5 million over the next three years to expand the Kona Coffee Living History Farm which will create a permanent exhibition space for “The Kona Coffee Story: Along the Hawai’I Belt Road,” an award winning exhibition created in a partnership which included the Japanese American National Museum (another Smithsonian Affiliate) and which was donated to the Kona Historical Society.
So, Happy 10th anniversary to The Wing and Kona Historical Society! And here’s to many more years of collaboration.
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Phone Smithsonian Affiliations: (202) 633-5300 SITES: (202) 633-3168 Museum on Main Street (202) 633-5335 |
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