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April 30, 2013
From amazing animals to the immigration experience in America, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibitions reflect the depth and breadth of the Smithsonian’s research and collections. Host a SITES exhibition and find out how it can expand your community of visitors and supporters, lead to creative programming opportunities and generate greater press coverage. Here are some of our newest available exhibitions:
 Rothschild Giraffes, Barbara von Hoffman, Nature’s Best Photography Nature’s Best Photography: Windland Smith Rice International Awards
Nature’s Best Photography features 48 award-winning, large-scale, color photographs of wildlife and wild places from around the globe. From animals on land, in the sea and in the air to images of people in nature, Nature’s Best Photography reveals the majesty, diversity and even humor of the animal and natural world. Nature’s Best Photography includes information about the species and its habitat, a description of how each photographer captured their shot, technical photo specifications and a video of polar bear cubs in the wild. Don’t miss your chance to host this eye-opening exhibition of rare and wonderful images of our animal cousins. Now booking! Tour begins April 2014. Contact: Ed Liskey, liskeye@si.edu, 202.633.3142
 Asians worked the Hawai’i plantations, playing a major role in the archipelago’s agricultural industry. Photograph courtesy The Bishop Museum, Hawai’i I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story
Asian and Pacific Americans (APAs) make up more than 5% of the U.S. population –over 17 million people—and those numbers are growing. In the first exhibition of its kind, the Smithsonian celebrates APA history across the multitude of incredibly diverse cultures, and explores how APAs have shaped and been shaped by the course of our nation’s history. Rich with compelling, often surprising stories, the exhibition takes a sweeping look at this history, from the very first Asian immigrants to the influx of highly skilled workers many decades later. Thanks to a generous grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Wide American Earth is available at a modest fee of $2,000 per 10-week booking, plus outgoing shipping. Now booking! Tour begins September 2013. Contact: Minnie Russell, russellm@si.edu, 202.633.3160
 Dancers and musicians perform a Bollywood show at a restaurant in Jackson Heights. Queens, New York. Photo by Preston Merchant Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation
Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation is a groundbreaking exhibition exploring the vibrant heritage, daily experience, and diverse political, professional and cultural contributions of Indian Americans in shaping the United States. Told through captivating images, music, visual art, and first-person narratives, Beyond Bollywood documents a history of discrimination, resistance, achievements and the lasting influence Indian Americans have had on the American experience. Tour begins January 2015. Contact: Ed Liskey, liskeye@si.edu, 202.633.3142
May is a busy time in Affiliateland!
CALIFORNIA
The Japanese American National Museum will open SITES’ American Heroes: Japanese American WWII Nisei Soldiers and the Congressional Gold Medal, 5.4. The museum will also host the National Portrait Gallery’s traveling exhibition Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits in Los Angeles, 5.11.
 Detail of a historic firearm to be displayed in Cody, Wyoming. WYOMING
64 artifacts from the National Museum of American History’s firearm collection go on display at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, 5.4.
FLORIDA
The Polk Museum of Art will host the Mayfaire Arts Festival. Beverly K. Cox, formerly Exhibits Coordinator for the National Portrait Gallery, will serve as the jurist for the museum’s annual two-day arts festival in Lakeland, 5.10.
St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum will host a public program on the Art of Boatbuilding, featuring curator Douglas Herman from the National Museum of the American Indian. He will present a public demonstration on boatbuilding by Pacific Islanders in St. Augustine, 5.18.
NORTH CAROLINA
The Schiele Museum of Natural History and Lynn Planetarium will open an exhibition entitled Mammal Safari, featuring 25 mounted specimens on loan from the National Museum of Natural History, in Gastonia, 5.18.
MARYLAND
College Park Aviation Museum will host their second Youth Capture the Colorful Cosmos workshop in College Park, 5.19.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum hosts a reception for all Affiliate staff during the American Alliance of Museums annual meeting in Baltimore, 5.21.
 Native skateboard culture is headed to Connecticut CONNECTICUT
The Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center hosts SITES’s Ramp it Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America in Mashantucket, 5.25.
TEXAS
Fort Worth Museum of Science and History is hosting SITES’ Elvis at 21, featuring 40 Smithsonian artifacts in Fort Worth, 5.23.
MAINE
Abbe Museum opens SITES’ IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas, in Bar Harbor 5.23.
April 29, 2013
Spring has sprung, and 2013 continues to be a successful one for our Affiliates!
Funding
The Ohio Historical Society (Columbus, Ohio) has received $155,000 from the Ohio General Assembly for repairs on the sternwheeler W.P. Snyder. The Society also received two awards from The National Endowment for the  Humanities: one for $248,600 to continue the digitization of Ohio’s microfilmed newspapers as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program and one for $359,994 to support a project to increase and share knowledge about Midwestern Native American tribes with community college educators.
Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan) received a $1.9 million gift to create the first endowed curatorship. The Berryman MSU Museum Curator of History Endowment established by Julie Avery, Stephen Stier and Val Berryman will create a new curator position for the museum’s historical collections.
Hugh Moore Park, home of the National Canal Museum, (Easton, Pennsylvania) will receive $475,000 in upgrades, including a canal-themed playground, an outdoor classroom and signs detailing the park’s historical elements. $175,000 will be from a state grant for the project and the rest of the funds will come from the Hugh Moore Trust.
Awards/Recognition
 The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, Texas) recently achieved a four Green Globes(R) rating from the Green Building Initiative for its sustainability practices. The museum’s achievement is a rare feat — only 12 out of 759 Green Globes certified buildings in the US have achieved four Globes.
Executive Transitions
Smithsonian Affiliations would like to welcome the following new directors to the Affiliate network:
- Patrick D. Lyons, Ph.D. will be the new director of Arizona State Museum (Tucson, Arizona)
- Ramiro A. Ortiz and Stuart A. Chase who have been named to lead HistoryMiami (Miami, Florida)
- Kay Peninger recently started as executive director of the Charlotte Museum of History (Charlotte, North Carolina)
April 11, 2013
 Smithsonian Affiliations is pleased to announce a new affiliate relationship with the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine. The Abbe Museum is Maine’s first Smithsonian Affiliate, joining 177 Affiliates in 41 states, Puerto Rico and Panama, currently in association with the Smithsonian.
“Becoming a Smithsonian Affiliate will support exciting collaborations between our organizations, while dramatically expanding the Abbe Museum’s visibility in the market place and in Maine’s cultural community,” said Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, Abbe CEO. “Collaborative projects are key to the Abbe’s strategic direction. The Smithsonian is an incredible institution with tremendous scope in reach and resources. We are thrilled to share those resources with our community and members.”
The partnership will provide the Abbe Museum access to the Smithsonian’s many resources, including its 137 million-object collections, scholarships and educational opportunities for staff, traveling exhibits and membership benefits.
“The Abbe Museum is well-recognized for its outstanding collections, first-class exhibits, professional staff and commitment to education,” said Harold A. Closter, director of Smithsonian Affiliations. “With a mission that so thoroughly matches the work of the Smithsonian, we are honored to welcome the Abbe Museum into the family of Smithsonian Affiliates and look forward to working with this impressive organization to help preserve the rich heritage of Maine and share the inspiring stories of its people.”
Collaboration with the Smithsonian is something in which the Abbe Museum already has experience. When Abbe’s downtown location opened, the museum borrowed three collection items for the exhibit “Four Molly’s: Women of the Dawn,” guest curated by Bunny McBride.
On May 23, the exhibition “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas” will go on display in the Abbe where it will remain through Aug. 4. “IndiVisible” was developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
The Abbe has long enjoyed a relationship with the National Museum of the American Indian, particularly working together in the development of educational programming.
A current Abbe Board Member, member of the Passamaquoddy tribe and renowned Native artist, David Moses Bridges, has worked extensively with the Smithsonian as a researcher, consultant and educator.
“I was very excited to learn of our relationship with the Smithsonian,” said Bridges. “I have always been impressed by the Smithsonian’s commitment to include Native people as the caretakers and interpreters of the collections they oversee. The Affiliations program allows the Abbe Museum and its visitors access to the greatest collection of Indigenous art in the world. Anyone who has stepped inside the Smithsonian will understand that the Abbe Museum’s new affiliation with the Smithsonian is surely something to be excited about.”
Established in 1996, Smithsonian Affiliations is a national outreach program that develops long-term collaborative partnerships with museums and educational and cultural organizations to enrich communities with Smithsonian artifacts, scholars, educational programs and professional-development opportunities. The long-term goal of Smithsonian Affiliations is to facilitate a two-way relationship among Smithsonian Affiliates and Smithsonian museums and research, education and outreach organizations to increase discovery, inspiration and lifelong learning in communities across America. More information about the Smithsonian Affiliations program and Affiliate activity is available at www.affiliations.si.edu.
March 26, 2013
Smithsonian Affiliations introduces PAL Talks (Partnering with Affiliates for Learning)! Refresh your knowledge or learn something new about being an Affiliate and collaborating with the Smithsonian in webinars and video chats about membership, branding, artifact loans and more.
 Our first Vidyo conference in February 2013 was a huge success! Our successful pilot using Vidyo at the Mobile App Clinic last month showed us that Affiliates are eager to learn more about collaboration opportunities at the Smithsonian. We also thought Affiliates would like more opportunities to learn about each benefit of their affiliation in further detail.
So we’re kicking things off with a Vidyo webinar about the Smithsonian Affiliations Membership Program. External Affairs Manager, Christina DiMeglio Lopez will lead the chat and explain why everyone should be taking advantage of “two memberships in one.”
When: Wednesday, April 24, 3:00-4:00 p.m. (EST)
How: Vidyo video webinar
Setup: Download and test the Vidyo software here.
RSVP: bugbeee@si.edu
Questions? Contact Christina DiMeglio Lopez or Elizabeth Bugbee for more information about this new digital learning opportunity.
March 25, 2013
 Kiki Smith, Banshee Pearls, 1991, 12 prints, lithograph with aluminum leaf additions on handmade Japanese paper. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Lichtenberg Family Foundation, © 1991 Kiki Smith/ ULAE PUERTO RICO
Educators from the National Postal Museum lead workshops on designing educational materials for exhibitions and for different audiences at the Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos in Gurabo, 4.5-6.
FLORIDA
The Naples Museum of Art opens the Multiplicity exhibition, featuring 83 works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collections (including the one to the right!) in Naples, 4.6.
MARYLAND
Rebecca Trautmann, National Museum of the American Indian curator, will serve as a juror for the upcoming Elements in Balance exhibition at Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center in Solomon, 4.8.
NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of History will be loaning objects to the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Renwick Gallery for the Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color exhibition, opening in Washington, D.C. on 4.12.
CALIFORNIA
Staff from the National Museum of Natural History will present workshops and lectures sponsored by the Riverside Metropolitan Museum as part of Smithsonian Week in Riverside, 4.23-25.
TEXAS
The City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department will announce their affiliation in Austin, 4.24.
January 30, 2013
Do you operate an education center at your museum, or thinking about it? Join us at the Affiliations National Conference on June 10-12 to meet colleagues who are opening or running new spaces for learning on the Smithsonian campus. Through tours of these spaces, frank discussions with colleagues, exchanging resources and research, and hands-on activities, discover and share what makes an education center such a vital place in a museum.
Affiliations staff is currently working with the following museums to feature their education spaces:
- The National Museum of Natural History will be opening Q?RIUS in 2013, a new interactive 10,000 square foot programming space. Q?RIUS will have access to a 20,000 specimen collection representing all departments of the museum, innovative programming and distance learning opportunities.
- The National Museum of the American Indian’s imagiNATIONS activity center invites families to explore how Native peoples have adapted to natural environments with innovation. Visitors can explore different kinds of transportation (snowshoes and skateboards), homes (tipis, adobes, igloos), hands-on activities (basket-weaving, Native percussion), and more.
- The National Museum of American History is undergoing a major renovation that will result in new education spaces when they reopen in 2015. Affiliates can talk to the staff about their planning and prototyping process, the “Object Project” and demonstration spaces, and explore possible collaboration opportunities.
- The National Air and Space Museum’s Moving Beyond Earth gallery is an immersive space that puts visitors “in orbit.” Affiliates can enter their Shuttle mock-up to learn about life in orbit (including the space toilet), or play the interactive SpaceFlight Academy, a group quiz that tests flight readiness.
- The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s very popular ARTLAB+ is a digital media studio for
 teens. Staff will share how they provide access to professional technology and art, coupled with mentorship, to develop a community of young creators and innovators.
Come to the Affiliations National Conference in Washington, D.C., on June 10-12, and bring your own experiences with education spaces to share with Smithsonian and Affiliate colleagues in these hands-on tours. See you there!
The Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference is for current Affiliates only. If you are interested in becoming an Affiliate, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee for more information.
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