Spark! Places of Innovation
August 23 - October 5
In small towns across America, people are creating new products, taking risks, meeting challenges together, and seizing upon exciting opportunities that change local life and sometimes reach far beyond. Spark! Places of Innovation will highlight innovation in rural America from the perspective of the people who lived it!
Solar array on a rural Vermont farm. US Department of Energy Photo by Emily Boren
The Exhibit
Spark! features stories from over 30 rural communities across the nation that reveal the dynamic relationship between place and creativity. Technical, social, cultural, artistic, or a combination of all of these– every innovation is as unique as each community.
Spark! Places of Innovation Preview – Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street, photo by James Kegley
Companion Exhibit
"From Buy Boats to Beaches"
Our companion exhibit, “From Buy Boats to Beaches: 100 Years of Resiliency on the Chesapeake Bay” celebrates the unique innovation shown by Black and Jewish groups in creating a proliferation of safe havens in our area to access and enjoy the Chesapeake Bay during the Jim Crow years. Visitors will experience these stories through audio and visual engagement including oral histories.
Also on display will be the 11-piece collection of Norman Gross, who creates intricately detailed boat models depicting the legacy of his family's maritime heritage in Shady Side.
Postcard advertising Sparrow's Beach in Annapolis, Maryland. (Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation)
Spark! Places of Innovation is part of Museum on Main Street (MoMS), a unique collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, state humanities councils across the nation, and local host organizations. To learn more, visit www.museumonmainstreet.org.
