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SITES Corner: New Exhibitions for a New Year

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The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) has some exciting exhibitions for 2019 and beyond. Check out what’s available and bring a Smithsonian exhibition to your neighborhood soon.

Soldier with painting.

Courtesy Matt Mitchell.

100 Faces of War
Featuring 100 portraits of Americans from every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, the subjects represent a cross section of those who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and reflect a variety of military branches, job descriptions, and personal backgrounds. Each oil painting is coupled with a personal statement from the participant to create a fuller portrait. Tour through fall 2020.
For more information, contact Ed Liskey, liskeye@si.edu, 202.633.3142

Billie Holiday at Sugar Hill: Photographs by Jerry Dantzic
The exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the iconic jazz musician’s public and private life just two years before her death at the age of 44. Includes 65 pigment prints with labels, panels, objects, ephemera, projected video, and vinyl excerpts from the work of renowned writer/author, Zadie Smith. Tour launches 2019. Special discounts for February 16, 2019 to May 12, 2019 ($10,000) and for September 29, 2019 to January 5, 2020 ($15,000), all plus shipping.
For more information, contact Michelle Torres-Carmona, torrescm@si.edu, 202.633.3181.

Girl in Red by R. Blackburn

Robert Blackburn, Girl in Red, 1950, Lithograph, 18 1/4 x 13 1/2, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Photograph by Karl Peterson

Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking
Explore the work of the Robert Blackburn, the first Master Printer for the Universal Limited Art Editions, and founder of his own highly influential Printmaking Workshop. Viewers will trace his artistic journey leading up to and during the “graphics boom” in American printmaking and his later experimental works. Seventy original prints by Blackburn and his contemporaries are included from significant public and private collections. Tour launches May 2020.
For more information, contact Minnie Russell, russellm@si.edu, 202-633-3160.

The Way We Worked
We are pleased to expand the offering of The Way We Worked, a highly successful exhibition from our Museum on Main Street program, to qualified venues. The Way We Worked explores how work became such a central element in American culture by tracing the many changes that affected the workforce and work environments over the past 150 years. The exhibition draws from the National Archives’ rich photography collections to tell this compelling story. Tour launches summer 2019.
For more information, contact Minnie Russell, russellm@si.edu, 202-633-3160.

Photo of children working.

Photo by Lewis Hine, 1909. Courtesy National Archives, Records of the Children’s Bureau

Kudos Affiliates! December 2018

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Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

The National Mississippi River Museum received $5,000 from IBM to aid the development of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum at the museum.

Midlands Community Foundation has awarded $89,175 to 24 nonprofit organizations serving Sarpy and Cass counties. Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum received $3,300.

The Knight Foundation announced the winners of the 2018 Knight Arts Challenge in Detroit. The Arab American National Museum was awarded $100,000 to support the Arab American Arts and Cultural Festival.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Burns & McDonnell made a multiyear, multi-million-dollar commitment to Science City at Union Station Kansas City. Burns & McDonnell will invest $2.5-3 million over the next five years, bringing the total investment over the last decade to an excess of $8 million. The first phase of offerings include:

  • Burns & McDonnell Battle of the Brains: Commitment for two more K-12 STEM competitions, with each to result in a $1 million permanent exhibit inspired by area students.
  • Field Trip and Transportation Fund: For an entire school year, Burns & McDonnell will award one field trip per week for a class to experience Science City.
  • Pop-Up Series: Burns & McDonnell and Science City STEM professionals will be on-site to present insightful talks and demos for students.
  • Summer Camp: STEM professionals from Burns & McDonnell will enrich Science City’s summer camp with industry trends and innovations and share tips and insights regarding careers in STEM.
  • Internship: A Burns & McDonnell Battle of the Brains participant will be offered an internship to work at Burns & McDonnell or Science City.

LEADERSHIP

Jody Blankenship, CEO of the Connecticut Historical Society, has stepped down to take the job as president and CEO of the Indiana Historical Society. He will replace John Herbst, who served at the Indiana society’s helm for 12 years after leading Conner Prairie and the Indiana State Museum. Herbst is retiring at the end of the year, and Blankenship will take over Jan. 21.

The Newark Museum announced that Linda Harrison had been selected to succeed Steven Kern as director and chief executive officer. Ms. Harrison is coming from the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where she has served as the director and chief executive since 2013. Ms. Harris will begin her new position in January 2019.

Smithsonian Learning Lab Webinar: Creating National History Day Collections

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Learning lab elephant logoFor the past two years Smithsonian Learning Lab has been a tool for curating topic ideas for students participating in National History Day (NHD) research projects.

The Learning Lab team, along with educators from NHD and the National Endowment for the Humanities, will hold an online session on Thursday, August 9 at 4 pm ET around the 2019 NHD theme Triumph and Tragedy in History. Learn how to use Learning Lab to showcase your  collections and make them available to students around the country conducting research for their 2019 NHD projects. (See Learning Lab NHD collection examples here.)

In this session, designed for museum educators and other National History Day (NHD) content creators, participants will learn about the 2019 theme “Triumph and Tragedy” from NHD staff and hear from educators at the Smithsonian and National Endowment for the Humanities about their experiences in curating content for NHD students using the Smithsonian Learning Lab since 2017.

If you are new to NHD, read these two articles from Smithsonian staff in the 2019 NHD Theme Book to get a feel for how Learning Lab can help students spark ideas for their projects.

• Stories of Triumph and Tragedy found in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery (pg. 22)
• Discover Digital Tools and Resources for Triumph and Tragedy in History (pg. 43)

RSVP for the webinar here! 

Kudos Affiliates! July 2018

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Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have a kudos to share? Please send potential kudos to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

Funding

In pursuit of its commitment to advance the creative capacity of people and communities across the nation, the National Endowment for the Arts  (NEA) announced its second round of funding for Art Works, the NEA’s principal grants program, for fiscal year 2018. The funding includes the following Affiliate initiatives:

The Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford, CT)  will receive $30,000 to support the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP) and related activities in documenting folklife. The Center will also receive $25,000 to support the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program.

The Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, Inc., on behalf of High Museum of Art, (Atlanta, GA) will receive $65,000 to support the exhibition and an accompanying catalog, Putting Something Over Something Else: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series.

The Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI), as part of  the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) will receive $20,000 to support artist residencies and associated community engagement activities at the Museum.

National Jazz Museum in Harlem (New York, NY) will receive $20,000 to support the exhibit From Ragtime to Harlem Stride: James P. Johnson and the Emergence of Recording Technology.

Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts, Inc. (Queens, NY) will receive $60,000 to support a series of global music, dance, theater, and multidisciplinary performances held at Flushing Town Hall.

Heritage Farm Foundation, on behalf of Heritage Farm Museum & Village (Huntington, WV), will receive $75,000 to support a cultural district master plan in Huntington.

Springfield Museums (Springfield, MA)  has received a $200,000 grant from Massachusetts Cultural Council to help implement upgrades to the Springfield Science Museum’s bathrooms, lighting and carpeting.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker with the Cat in the Hat. The Governor was on a visit to announce the $200,000 grant.

NASA’s Teams Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions (TEAM II) announced that the Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, KS) was one of three projects selected from 43 submissions to receive funding. The funded project, Apollo Redux, will incorporate historic mission control consoles from Johnson Space Center with traveling interactive educational exhibits and curriculum. The $650,000 grant will cover the cost of refurbishing the consoles, creating the educational components, and designing the exhibits.

Inasmuch Foundation has announced the distribution of $4.154 million in grants to 47 organizations serving Oklahoma communities including $250,000 to the Stafford Air and Space Museum (Weatherford, OK) for the capital campaign for museum expansion.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) has received a $20,000 grant from The Dubuque Racing Association for a new educational outreach vehicle to take informational learning to the community outside the organization. In particular, it will allow families, schools and the general public to engage with sea life from the Mississippi River Delta and Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced more than $256 million in approved funding to rebuild critical national park infrastructure.  Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell, MA) received $4,177,000 for the upgrade and replacement of windows at the Boott Mill Museum.

Leadership

Longtime Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY) Chief Executive Officer Bruce Eldredge announced his retirement. The museum’s board of trustees is conducting a nationwide search to choose a replacement. Eldredge will remain in his position until a new director has been chosen. He plans to relocate to the Seattle area to spend more time with family members there.

Timothy P. McGrane is leaving his position as Executive Director of the Blackhawk Museum (Danville, CA). McGrane has accepted a new position as CEO of SCRAMP (Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula) and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.

Smithsonian Announces Director for Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations

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Myriam Springuel

Views from the Destination Moon press event that was held in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, on February 22, 2017. Event was held to announce the national tour of the Apollo 11 Command Module exhibit. Myriam Springuel, Director, SITES. Photo by Dane Penland. [Apollo DestinationMoon-2-22-2017-0223] [NASM2017-00421]

Today we are pleased to announce an important step in strengthening our content and peer-outreach capabilities. As of June 7, we have aligned the work of two organizations into one management structure called the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations. This unit will be overseen by Myriam Springuel. As many of you know, Myriam has served as the Director of Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) since 2015 and as the interim director of Affiliations since June 2017.

Smithsonian Affiliations has grown into a globally recognized program that establishes and maintains the Smithsonian’s long-term partnerships with museums, educational organizations, and cultural institutions—there are now more than 200 affiliated organizations in 46 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama. For more than 65 years, SITES has shared Smithsonian exhibitions and educational resources with people and places all across the country. More than 500 communities in all 50 states host SITES shows in formats ranging from large-scale exhibits with iconic Smithsonian objects, to exhibitions for mid-size museums and cultural centers, and from small exhibitions for rural America, to poster exhibitions tailored to school classrooms. Putting these two critical entities together under one leader is an important step in improving capabilities related to several goals in the Institution’s new Strategic Plan, including understanding and reaching new audiences, using partnerships more effectively, and catalyzing new conversations around complex challenges across the nation.

Myriam brings 30 years of experience in museum planning, management, exhibitions, education, and staff training. Before returning to the Smithsonian in 2014, Myriam worked as a consultant with museums across the country. She was Director of Education and later Associate Director for Programs at SITES from 1986 to 1994. Earlier in her career, she curated fine arts exhibitions and developed education programs at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Myriam holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Maryland.

We encourage you to engage with Myriam as we consider how to take our work across the country and benefit from our relationships with other museum leaders in the Affiliate community.

Sincerely,

John Davis
Provost and Under Secretary for Museums, Education, and Research

Patty Bartlett
Associate Provost for Education and Access and Senior Advisor to the Secretary

If you have questions, please contact Myriam Springuel, Director, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations at SpringuelM@SI.edu

Part 1: Using Collections to Think About Immigration with the Smithsonian Learning Lab

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In 2017-2018 a collaboration among Smithsonian Affiliations, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access brought the Teacher Creativity Studios: Fostering Global Competence in the Classroom project to 3 Affiliate communities. The nationwide professional development project for educators is designed to develop new instructional materials and content highlighting Asian Pacific American experiences within K-12 humanities subject areas.

Teacher creating Learning Lab collection

Learning Lab workshop at the Tsongas Industrial History Center. Photo by Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access

Smithsonian Affiliates worked with local teachers to create multimedia lessons on the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab portal that integrated resources from the Smithsonian and other participating museums into teaching materials and lesson plans. The goal was to increase digital access to museum collections and inspire students to investigate the world around them using objects, documents, videos and more, all available for free online.

A teacher in Lowell, MA, did just that. Laura Lamarre Anderson, Grade 4 Teacher at STEM Academy at the Rogers School, participated in a workshop at the Tsongas Industrial History Center at the Lowell National Historical Park, a Smithsonian Affiliate, to explore the question of “Who Belongs?” with her students. Below is an excerpt from a blog she wrote for the Smithsonian Learning Lab. You can read the whole blog here.

In a city like Lowell, rich with a constant flow of immigrants moving in from all over the world, the question of “who belongs” comes up frequently. After facing discrimination themselves, some second- and third-generation Irish immigrants railed against the newcomers who came after. And the cycle continues with each new group of immigrants facing challenges to their rights to be here. Several students in my classroom have come up against challenges to their right to be in Massachusetts, their right to be called American, because of where they or their parents were born. With this in mind, I tried to choose images that reflect the challenges of immigration, that would help generate conversations about how people were welcomed at different points in our history, and that help us to begin thinking about what it means to be an American.

Teacher Creativity Studios workshops are funded by the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool at the Smithsonian.

If you are interested in learning more about the Smithsonian Learning Lab and how it could help your museum support teachers and students in your community, contact your National Outreach Manager.