Smithsonian Affiliations

10/25/2023

Smithsonian Affiliations creates long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with museums and other cultural and educational organizations to fulfill the Smithsonian's mission.

Our network of more than 200 Affiliate organizations collaborates with the Smithsonian – and with each other – to create experiences that educate and inspire. Through our Affiliates, the Smithsonian reaches millions of visitors each year and many times more in classrooms and online with engaging and innovative learning opportunities!

Learn more: https://s.si.edu/3Qa1ZRB

The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations brings the exhibitions, educational resources, and programs of the Smit...

10/24/2023

Learn about the science behind implicit bias and how to at our Affiliate Upcountry History Museum!

10/18/2023

Rock Hill, South Carolina has undergone immense growth and change in recent times. On this episode of Our Town, learn about the city's reinvention after the decline of its textile industry, shown through the symbolism found in the Civitas sculpture. Visitors can explore the Museum of York County's f...

10/14/2023

Congrats to our Affiliate the Cincinnati Museum Center on the opening of “Girlhood (it’s complicated)” today!! Explore how if you’re in the Cincinnati, OH area!

10/13/2023

“Girlhood (it’s complicated)” opens this Saturday at our Affiliate the Cincinnati Museum Center!

10/11/2023

The newest article on Smithsonian Magazine's Blog was written by our own staff member Jennifer Brundage!! The article highlights how educators from across the country convened on the Chesapeake Bay with a network of fellow ‘Earth Optimists.’ Check it out here:

A professional development experience provided opportunities for networking, novel experiences, and sharing stories of success in learning and taking action

10/09/2023

10/09/2023

09/29/2023

Behind the artwork

Know Your Right by David Alekhuogie

Exploring this changemaker through the theme of CATALYSTS

Twenty-five contemporary artists celebrate these groundbreaking men through their original, creative vision.

Visit the exhibit-www.bcri.org

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David Alekhuogie (b. 1986)
[Muhammed Ali]
Know Your Right, 2018

Courtesy of the artist

www.bcri.org
www.Menofchange.si.edu

09/26/2023

You can see “Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.” now at our Affiliate the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and at the Birmingham Public Library!

09/25/2023

Behind the artwork

Godchild by AG ROJAS

Celebrating these musicians through the theme of IMAGINING

Created for this exhibition, this work of art, along with the others on display, portrays the truth of the African American experience in history and today.

Get tickets to experience the exhibit- www.bcri.org
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A.G. Rojas (b. 1987)
[Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong]
Godchild, 2018 (detail)

Courtesy of the artist
www.Menofchange.si.edu

09/21/2023

Opening soon at our Affiliate Cincinnati Museum Center!

Quinceañera dresses allow girls to express their identity and negotiate tradition through fashion. Against her mother’s wishes and stepping outside of her own comfort zone, in 2000 Veronica Mendez wore this shinny gold dress instead of a traditional pink. New millennium, new woman!

Explore the cultural importance of quinceañeras when our traveling exhibition "Girlhood (it's complicated)" opens at the Cincinnati Museum Center (one of our Smithsonian Affiliations collaborators) on Thursday, October 12!

"Girlhood (It’s complicated)" engages audiences in timely conversations about women’s history and women’s issues through unexpected stories of girlhood in the United States. It was developed in partnership with the National Museum of American History and is supported by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.



Image: Courtesy of the National Museum of American History

09/19/2023

Congratulations to Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks on this wonderful honor!!

Ohio History Connection

A huge prehistoric structure in Ohio has become the 25th US landmark to be awarded a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

09/18/2023

Hey, it's Jennifer again. Imagine my luck at getting to visit two Smithsonian research centers in the same month! 😎

Last week took me to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, an amazing country-wide campus of facilities across Panamá. I got to visit the Paleoecology Lab (notice a vertebrae from today's tropical snakes compared to a fossilized one from the Titanaboa!)—they are 3D digitizing pollen grains in order to compare to fossilized grains and understand the forests of thousands of years ago.

Barro Colorado Island in Lake Gatun is a nature monument that the Smithsonian has stewarded and studied for 100 years. What beautiful diversity, including many napping spider monkeys. Scientists at STRI don't just study the forest from below.

Thanks to the Bradley crane that rises 60' high and extends 65' out, researchers can study the forest from above the tree canopy, finding cactus and insect species they don't see on the ground. Punta Culebra is the Center's education and public outreach campus. They have a Q?rios Lab too like we do in Washington (except DC doesn't have the resident iguanas or sloths!)

And what a treat to visit the two Smithsonian Affiliates in Panamá. The Museo del Canal is in the historic quarter of Panamà City, while the BioMuseo highlights the discoveries of STRI scientists, like all the new species they find. What an incredible place! Thank you STRI for all you do to promote biodiversity and species conservation!

09/15/2023

Thanks for your support and for sharing, San Diego Air & Space Museum!!

09/15/2023

Celebrate at our Affiliate National Museum of Industrial History!

09/15/2023

09/15/2023

We’re joining our partners at the Smithsonian and Smithsonian Affiliations for a celebration of science and culture in honor of by featuring Hispanic people in STEM.

We're kicking things off with José Hernández. He's the subject of the biopic . We screened this inspiring film in partnership with Prime Video during LIVE@Frost Science this week!

On August 28, 2009, José Hernández, the son of Mexican immigrants, accomplished one of many firsts throughout his lifetime. He became the first migrant farmworker to go to space.

Hernández is an electrical and computer engineer whose lifelong dream was to become an astronaut. He helped support his family by harvesting crops while attending school and working toward STEM specializations through programs like Upward Bound.

After 11 applications to NASA's astronaut training program, he was admitted in 2004. He was later selected to serve on NASA's STS-18 mission as mission specialist.

09/15/2023

Celebrate with our Affiliate Wisconsin Veterans Museum!

Today marks the start of Hispanic Heritage Month. We kick off the month by sharing some of Jessica Garza's story. Jessica Garza served in the United States Army and was a military brat growing up. Looking up to her dad who served in the Air Force, she decided to join the military after high school in 2008.

She was first stationed in South Korea in 2009. Then, she went from Korea to Alaska to her deployment in Afghanistan with the 1-25th Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT), in April 2011. There, she was assigned to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Lagman. FOB Lagman was a former forward operating base in Qalati Ghilji, Zabul Province, Afghanistan. Within a month, her unit moved to FOB Masum Ghar. Time at Masum Ghar for Garza was challenging and included long days and nights with 24-hour duties.

Learn more about Jessica Garza and her time at Masum Ghar here: https://wisvetsmuseum.com/garza-under-fire-at-fob-masum-ghar/

09/15/2023

Today is the start of ! We are thrilled to announce a remarkable event featuring the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino, Building a Legacy: Inside the Journey to Establish the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American will take place at WKAR - Public Media from Michigan State University on Thursday, October 5, 2023.

Register here: http://bit.ly/Zamanillo_MSUM

09/15/2023

Learn about Latino history all year, beyond . Follow our fellow Smithsonian, the National Museum of the American Latino.

Their first exhibition “¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States” can be explored online or in person. Visit https://latino.si.edu/exhibitions/presente to learn more.

09/15/2023

Opening at our Affiliate the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute tomorrow! This is the last venue on the “Men of Change” tour. If you’re in the Birmingham, Alabama area make sure to visit this powerful exhibition that celebrates the power, voices, artistry, courage and resilience of African American men!

09/15/2023

What an incredible story of solidarity and standing up for truth! Ralph Lazo is an inspiration. Thank you for sharing his story, Japanese American National Museum!

Ralph Lazo was a Mexican American teenager who was voluntarily sent to a concentration camp in solidarity with his Japanese American friends.

Ralph was born in Los Angeles in 1924. When his Japanese American friends were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps during WWII, he knew that what was happening to them was wrong and that their incarceration was unconstitutional. He decided to give up his freedom and go with them.

"Passing" as Japanese American, Ralph was incarcerated at Manzanar when he was seventeen and stayed there until he was drafted in 1944. He remained a loyal friend and supporter of his Japanese American peers until his death in 1992. When asked, "Why did you go to camp? You didn't have to go," he would reply, simply, "None of us should have had to go."

📷: Photo of Ralph with his friends, Shibu and Rabbit, taken at Manzanar concentration camp. Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Bruce and Frances Kaji, 2008.81.3

Smithsonian Smithsonian Affiliations Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

09/15/2023

Today marks the beginning of !

As a Smithsonian affiliate, we'd like to use this occasion to highlight the National Museum of the American Latino, dedicated to providing a deeper appreciation of Latino history and culture in the United States.

Also, follow along as Smithsonian highlights a wider variety of Latino culture, art, history and more.

09/15/2023

Visit our Affiliate The Long Island Museum to see their “SOMOS/We Are: Latinx Artists of Long Island” exhibition!!

This year’s is special for the LIM, as we open “SOMOS/ WE ARE: Latinx Artists of Long Island,” an expansive exhibition featuring work from over 80 Latinx artists —historic, established, and contemporary— who live and work on Long Island. To kick off our celebration of LI’s Latinx communities, we highlight work from guest curator of “SOMOS,” Kelynn Z. Alder

Alder, the daughter of immigrants, is Mexican-American and has used her platform to help uplift other Latinx artists and the community on Long Island. She is a founding member of Latino Arts of Long Island. Her painting, “Immigrants” displays a trunk with photographs, stamps, and immigration documents layered over it, highlighting the difficult journey many have encountered and continue to face as they migrate to America.

Come view this poignant painting in person at the LIM Art Museum through December 17, 2023.
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Kelynn Z. Alder (b. 1959) “Immigrants,” 2018, oil and collage on canvas, 20 x 26 inches; Courtesy of the artist
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09/15/2023

"Scissor dancers throughout Peru’s south-central highlands wear brightly colored outfits. Their baggy trousers and fitted jackets are richly decorated with metallic embroidery, gold and silver fringe, and colored sequins and beads. Their large hats are often edged with tassels and feathers, and sometimes with ribbons. All scissor dancers have special names, which are often embroidered on their outfits. "Lastapara," embroidered on the hat and apron of this outfit, means “snowfall” in Quechua. Wearing a glove on their left hand, scissor dancers wield in their right hand polished iron rods, which represent scissors. As they perform demanding acrobatic leaps, the dancers strike the rods against each other, following the rhythm set by the accompanying violins and harps."

"The high Andean mountains of south-central Peru are the traditional setting for the "Quechua Danza de Tijeras," or Scissor Dance, an artistic and semi-religious performance that, on one level, expresses the human need to challenge and overcome physical limitations. Its origins uncertain, the dance evolved in the present-day departments of Huancavelica, Ayacucho, Apurimac, and Arequipa.[…] During the 1500s and 1600s, Catholic priests banned ancient agricultural rituals and persecuted scissor dancers because they refused to abandon their ancient ideas.[…] But since the Spanish could not entirely eradicate indigenous Andean beliefs, they integrated the scissor dance into colonial society under the condition that the dancers participate in the Catholic ritual calendar[…]. In this way, Christian rites in Andean communities were fused with traditional indigenous practices."—Fernando Flores-Zúñiga, with Cécile R. Ganteaume from the "Circle of Dance" exhibition (Oct. 6, 2012–Oct. 8, 2017) Read the full essay and learn more: https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/circleofdance/quechua.html.

Join us tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 16 at 1 or 3 PM ET at our New York City museum to mark . The whole family can experience the acrobatic stylings of Peruvian Scissor Dancers as they accompany Andean & Latin Fusion band RAYMI. Details: https://s.si.edu/3sSlW7q

Learn about Latino history all year, beyond . Follow our fellow Smithsonian, the National Museum of the American Latino.

09/15/2023

Our Affiliate colleagues at the Heinz History Center are kicking off by celebrating “The Great One!”

Thanks for uplifting the incredible life and legacy of Roberto Clemente!

09/13/2023

Explore "Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth." opening this Saturday, Sept. 16 at our Affiliate the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute!

09/06/2023

On view now at our Affiliate Grinnell College!

Our “Caribbean Indigenous Resistance ¡Taino Vive!” traveling exhibition, on view now at Grinnell College, tells the story of the Caribbean from the perspective of indigenous survival and resistance.

In 1492, it was the Indigenous Taíno peoples of the northern Caribbean islands, who discovered Christopher Columbus. This encounter set in motion an invasion by Spanish soldiers, priests, and colonists that devastated Taíno civilization and decimated the Taíno population. By the 1550s, colonial officials assumed Taíno peoples had become extinct. In reality, the Taíno and their culture resisted, survived, and continue to make an impact around the world today.

Visit Grinnell College now to explore the incredible history of these Spanish and English-speaking islands, and the impact and legacy of Caribbean Indigenous knowledge throughout the world!

08/29/2023

Explore the history and legacy of the "Poor People's Campaign" of 1968 at our Affiliate the Mississippi Department of Archives & History!

Join us for a gallery talk at 11 a.m. on Thursday, August 17, at the Two Mississippi Museums. Professor Ellen Meacham will present from her book Delta Epipha...

08/23/2023

If you’re in the Walsenburg, Colorado area check out “Crossroads: Change in Rural America” at the Museum of Friends (M*F). The exhibition was developed by our colleagues at the Museum on Main Street!

08/21/2023

08/18/2023

08/11/2023

Thank you, Cosmosphere Education!!

08/11/2023

Celebrate the Smithsonian's birthday by putting your knowledge to the test!

06/30/2023

Explore the “Negro Motorist Green Book” at our Affiliate the Heinz History Center!

The gentleman pictured here in 1940 was sleeping beneath his truck, as there were no sleeping accommodations for African Americans at that service station on U.S. 1. As an African American traveling this country’s roads during the Jim Crow-era of legalized segregation, he was not guaranteed a place to lay his head after a long journey on the road.

When Victor Hugo Green created “The Negro Motorist Green Book” in 1936 it was more than a travel guide. It was a shield, empowering Black people to explore their world with more dignity than fear, more elegance than embarrassment. Between 1936 and 1967, the guide provided an annual listing of businesses (hotels, motels, restaurants, music clubs, service stations, hair salons, etc.) that offered Black citizens dignity and respect in segregated America.

Learn more about its history and legacy in our traveling exhibition "The Negro Motorist Green Book" on view now at the Heinz History Center.

06/27/2023

How can we involve youth in conservation and imbue them with a greater sense of land stewardship?🌱In a new article, “When a Farm Becomes a Classroom: Cultivating Conservation Leaders at the Eldon Farms Field Day,” VWL’s Caitlyn Dittmeier revisits an adventure-packed morning when VWL, Piedmont Environmental Council, Smithsonian Affiliations, Howard County EcoWorks, the Akre Turtle Lab at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, and local farmers and naturalists from Virginia came together to engage Smithsonian Earth Optimism students in diverse conservation topics at Eldon Farms, Woodville VA. 🐝🐄🦉

“Farms are the perfect classrooms, as opportunities for experiential learning at endless! The more we get students into nature to learn, the better the future looks. — VWL’s Justin Proctor, lead organizer of the Eldon Farms Field Day.

Visit https://www.vaworkinglandscapes.org/newsletter/vwl-article-release-when-a-farm-becomes-a-classroom/ to read the full story.

📸: Students watch with Avian Conservationist Alan Williams as PEC’s Wildlife Habitat and Restoration Coordinator October Greenfield places a camera inside a nest-box to monitor a clutch of American Kestrels, including one chick that was ready to leave the nest for the first time; photo by Sophia Chapin, PEC.

06/27/2023

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is just around the corner!

In 2023, theSmithsonian Folklife Festival celebrates diverse American cultures through two programs: “Creative Encounters: Living Religions in the U.S.” and “The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region.” As always, the Festival invites visitors to participate in music and dance performances, hands-on activities, craft workshops, conversations, and cooking and gardening demonstrations. Mark your calendars for June 29–July 4 and July 6–9, and learn more at festival.si.edu!