Tag Archive for: smithsonian gardens

What’s Coming Up in Affiliateland in July 2019

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Summer is in full swing, and so are Affiliates!

MARYLAND
Historic Annapolis will host Hives Alive!, an afternoon about bees featuring James Gagliardi, Horticulturist for Smithsonian Gardens and editor of the Encyclopedia of Garden Plants for Every Location.  James will provide a talk about pollinators, in Annapolis, 7.14.

NATIONWIDE
68 Affiliates across the United States will help the Smithsonian celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission by screening the Smithsonian Channel’s new film, The Day We Walked on the Moon. Check here to find an Affiliate near you! 7.20.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Two Smithsonian educators will give workshops to teachers as part of The Children’s Museum of the Upstate’s Summer Academy. Staff from the Smithsonian Science Education Center will present a workshop on “Everyday Engineering,” and the National Museum of African Art will present on “Bringing African Art into the Classroom,” in Greenville, 7.24-25.

coming up in Affiliateland in July 2018

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Summer is heating up with Affiliate activity coast to coast!

NATIONWIDE
Eight Affiliates will be hosting interns from the Smithsonian Latino Center’s Young Ambassadors Program this summer, including the Adler Planetarium (Chicago); California Science Center (Los Angeles); Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (Fort Worth); History Colorado (Denver); HistoryMiami (Miami); Museum of Latin American Art  (Long Beach, CA), Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science (Miami); The Witte Museum (San Antonio), 7.5-8.2.18

MISSOURI
The Saint Louis Science Center will host a lecture by Dr. Margaret Weitekamp, curator at the National Air and Space Museum, on Star Trek: Science Fiction to Science Fact in St. Louis, 7.6.

TENNESSEE
The International Storytelling Center will host a Smithsonian Channel Screening of A Star-Spangled Story: Battle for America on 7.9 and My Big Bollywood Wedding on 7.23 in Jonesborough.

Several Affiliates are screening shows from the Smithsonian Channel this month.

MARYLAND
Historic Annapolis hosts a talk by Dr. Kenneth Cohen, curator at the National Museum of American History, on A 17-19th Century Pub Crawl: Taverns in Early America in Annapolis, 7.10.

VIRGINIA
The Hermitage Museum and Gardens will host a lecture by Cynthia Brown, Manager of Horticulture Collections Management and Education at Smithsonian Gardens, on the Archives of American Gardens: Capturing Garden History in Norfolk, 7.11.

NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of History will host a screening of the Smithsonian Channel film, A Star-Spangled Story: Battle for America, in Raleigh, 7.11.

TEXAS
The Carver Museum, part of the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department will host a screening of the Smithsonian Channel film Black Wings in Austin, 7.14.

SOUTH CAROLINA
The Children’s Museum of the Upstate will host two teacher workshops featuring educators from the Smithsonian on Fostering Wonder and Introducing Astronomy to Young Children in Greenville, 7.24-25.

Coming Up in Affiliateland in April 2017

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Smithsonian activity is popping up across the country this spring!

NEW YORK

Director of the Smithsonian Latino Center Eduardo Diaz will present the final talk in the Diversity in America lecture series at the Rockwell Museum in Corning, 4.6.

Susan Evans McClure, director of the Food program at the National Museum of American History, will talk about Food at the Nation’s History Museum to complement the Long Island Museum’s Edible Eden exhibition in Stony Brook, 4.23.

MASSACHUSETTS

Rapper and writer Chee Malabar, native of Kerala, performs at the Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, New York. The photograph by Preston Merchant is part of the exhibition Beyond Bollywood.

Historian and horticulturalist Cindy Brown from Smithsonian Gardens will give a talk on the history of American gardens as part of the Festival of Flowers at the Springfield Museums in Springfield, 4.6.

RHODE ISLAND

Susan Evans McClure, director of the Food program at the National Museum of American History, will talk about Food at the Nation’s History Museum as part of the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Relishing Rhode Island initiative in Providence, 4.19.

WASHINGTON

Smithsonian Acting Provost Richard Kurin will present a talk at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, 4.29.

SOUTH CAROLINA

The South Carolina State Museum will open SITES’ Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation exhibition in Columbia, 4.29.

What to see while you’re in town for the National Conference

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While you’re in D.C.,  don’t miss the opportunity to see what’s new at the Smithsonian! We know that it can be daunting to choose among all the museums and exhibitions, so here are a few suggestions, tailored to your time at the Affiliations conference.

Monday, June 15, 12:15 pm, Freer Sackler Gallery of Art
Before the conference starts, take advantage of a tour of Darren Waterson’s Filthy Lucre, a remix of the iconic Peacock Room (details here).

A decadent ruin collapsing under the weight of its own creative excess, Filthy Lucre forms the centerpiece of an unprecedented exhibition that highlights the complicated tensions between art and money, ego and patronage, and acts of creative expression in the nineteenth century and today. It’s a way to see Whistler’s Peacock Room in a completely new light.

Tuesday, June 16, 5:30 pm, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Mingering Mike: SICKLE CELL ANEMIA, 1972. Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment

Mingering Mike: SICKLE CELL ANEMIA, 1972.
Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment

Head to the Smithsonian American Art Museum a little ahead of Congressional Night at the Smithsonian to catch a tour of the Mingering Mike’s Supersonic Greatest Hits exhibition.  If you’ve seen the retrospective documentary Searching For Sugar Man, you will love Mingering Mike, the soul superstar nobody has ever heard of. Learn about him and his visionary collection of fabricated music ephemera with Leslie Umberger, curator of folk and self-taught art. She will discuss the artist’s influences, share how the museum came to own the collection, and guide you through a collection of over 150 works of art.

Wednesday, June 17, 1 pm, Haupt Garden
Why not spend your lunch break learning “What Makes a Victorian Garden Victorian?”  Join one of the Smithsonian Gardens’ knowledgeable horticulturists who will describe the various features of the Enid A. Haupt Garden, including its plants and flowers, the Asian-inspired moongate garden, and the Moorish-inspired fountain garden.  Meet outside in the Haupt Garden, near the south entrance doors to the Smithsonian Castle.  Click here for complete information.

And if you can, take a peek at these new and exciting exhibitions:
Hear My Voice: Alexander Graham Bell and the Origins of Recorded Sound, National Museum of American History
In this new exhibition, see documents, recordings, laboratory notes, and apparatus from the Volta Laboratory. Learn about the early history of sound recording in the United States. Hear some of the earliest sound recordings ever made including the only known example of Graham Bell’s own voice, thanks to sound recovery techniques developed by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in partnership with the Library of Congress and the Museum.

Photographer Zack Brown shooting dapper men in Harlem, c. 1937 by Eliot Elisofon, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Photographer Zack Brown shooting dapper men in Harlem, c. 1937 by Eliot Elisofon, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Through the African American Lens: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African American History and Culture gallery at the National Museum of American History
The much anticipated National Museum of African American History and Culture is expected to officially open its doors in 2016. Check out what all the excitement is about right now!  A new exhibition at the National Museum of American History offers a preview of the artifacts and moments chronicled in the collections.

The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, National Museum of African Art

Yinka Shonibare MBE How to Blow Up Two Heads at Once (Gentlemen) 2006 Sindika Dokolo Collection, Luanda Photograph by Axel Schneider ©Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt

Yinka Shonibare MBE
How to Blow Up Two Heads at Once (Gentlemen) 2006  Sindika Dokolo Collection, Luanda
Photograph by Axel Schneider
©Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt

Right down the hall from conference sessions in the Ripley Center, you will find The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists exhibition.  A combination of new commissions and recently produced works of art come together in this exhibition to demonstrate the ongoing global relevance of the themes addressed in Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem, The Divine Comedy. Forty of the best known and emerging artists from 18 African nations and the African diaspora working in media as diverse as video projection, installation, painting, sculpture and textiles explore diverse issues of politics, identity, faith, and form. In so doing, they reveal that each person’s vision of heaven, purgatory, or hell is unique.

Shirin Neshat: Facing History, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Grab lunch nearby and walk to the Hirshorn Museum to stroll the gardens.  Then, go upstairs to the second level to see the Shirin Neshat: Facing History exhibition. In her mesmerizing films and photographs, Shirin Neshat examines the nuances of

Shirin Neshat, I Am Its Secret (Women of Allah), 1993. Photo: Plauto. © Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Shirin Neshat, I Am Its Secret (Women of Allah), 1993. Photo: Plauto. © Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

power and identity in the Islamic world–particularly in her native country of Iran. Shirin Neshat: Facing History presents an array of Neshat’s most compelling works, illuminating the points at which cultural and political events have impacted her artistic practice.

 

For a complete list of all the events and exhibitions at the Smithsonian, click here!

let’s source the crowds

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While it may seem like a contemporary term, many museums, including the Smithsonian, have been using crowdsourcing as a strategy for years.  At the Smithsonian, we’ve been at it since 1849, when the first Secretary, Joseph Henry, used 150 weather observers all over the U.S. to contribute data, an activity that led to the formation of the National Weather Service.

The Smithsonian still sources the power of our audiences today on topics ranging from tree leaves and gardens to immigration and stories from rural America.  We’d love to hear from you!  Please contribute your voice, or let your visitors know, about the projects below.  Do you have a crowdsourcing initiative you’d like to share?  Let us know in the comments.

SI Transcription Center– Crowdsourcing transcriptions of primary source documents https://transcription.si.edu/

Leafsnap – Crowdsourcing tree images for mobile app https://leafsnap.com/

worksgarden

crowdsourced image of kohlrabi growing in the garden of The Works, a Smithsonian Affiliate in Newark, Ohio.

Encyclopedia of Life – Crowdsourcing species-related media https://eol.org/info/contribute

Our American Journey (National Museum of American History) – Crowdsourcing oral histories of American experience of migration and immigration  https://my.si.edu/oaj/story

Community of Gardens (Smithsonian Gardens)- Learn from the ways that gardens and gardeners of all backgrounds have shaped America’s landscape.  https://communityofgardens.si.edu/

Agriculture Innovation and Heritage Archive (National Museum of American History) – Think about how transformations in American agriculture have affected you, your family, your community, and the environment.    https://americanhistory.si.edu/agheritage/how-to-participate

Stories from Main Street  (Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service)– Crowdsourcing stories about rural America  – https://www.storiesfrommainstreet.org/

Ask Smithsonian (Smithsonian Magazine) – Try to stump us with a question about anything.  Really, anything.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian/ask-form/?no-ist

Will to Adorn (Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage) – Listen to and contribute your stories about the choices you make everyday when you dress for school, work, fun, or special occasions. https://www.festival.si.edu/2013/Will_to_Adorn/GetTheApp/

eMammal (National Museum of Natural History) – Work with researchers to document mammals using camera traps. https://emammal.wordpress.com/about/

Finally, here’s a look at some spectacular online exhibitions created by crowdsourcing:

from the crowdsourced exhibition, A Day in the Life of Asian Pacific America

from the crowdsourced exhibition, A Day in the Life of Asian Pacific America

A Day in the Life of Asian Pacific America (Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center) – The first crowdsourced gallery of the Asian Pacific American experience around the world as lived on one day.  https://smithsonianapa.org/life2014/

My Space Shuttle Memories (National Air and Space Museum) Did you ever see a space shuttle launch or land in person?   https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/moving-beyond-earth/memories.cfm

Portraits of Planet Ocean (National Museum of Natural History) – Stunning photo gallery of the world’s magnificent oceans by oceanographers and enthusiasts.   https://www.flickr.com/groups/portraitsofplanetocean/