The traveling Smithsonian exhibit Spark! Places of Innovation will have its grand opening in South Carolina at the Colleton Museum & Farmers Market on Saturday, June 15, 2024. The exhibition explores the unique combination of places, people, and circumstances that sparks innovation and invention in rural communities. The exhibit will be in Walterboro until Saturday, July 27, and several collateral programs and events will take place while the exhibit is on display. The tour of Spark! Places of Innovation is made possible in South Carolina by SC Humanities.
The Colleton Museum & Farmers Market was chosen by SC Humanities through a competitive application process to host Spark! as part of the Museum on Main Street program—a national/state/local partnership to bring exhibitions and programs to rural cultural organizations. The exhibition will tour six communities in South Carolina from June 2024 through April 2025; an itinerary of all six stops on the tour and more program details can be found at https://schumanities.org/projects/spark/.
Spark! Places of Innovation highlights innovation in rural America from the perspective of the people who lived it! Their words, images, and experiences gathered through an ambitious crowdsourcing initiative are the heartbeat of the exhibition. Technical, social, cultural, artistic, or a combination of all of these– every innovation is as unique as each community. Explore the diversity, ingenuity, and tenacity of rural Americans in Spark! Places of Innovation.
Colleton Museum & Farmers Market is open Tuesday – Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and on Saturday from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. It is closed on Sundays and Mondays. The museum is located at 506 E Washington St, Walterboro, SC 29488. There will be several collateral events while Spark! is in Walterboro. More details will be available soon.
Designed for small-town museums, libraries and cultural organizations, Spark! will be the springboard for diverse local programming in the humanities, sciences, and arts. Visitors will be inspired to learn about innovation has shaped their own communities and how they may be innovators themselves. Community members will come together in conversation about their history, present, and future.
The exhibition is part of Museum on Main Street, a unique collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), state humanities councils across the nation, and local host institutions. To learn more about Spark! Places of Innovation and other Museum on Main Street exhibitions, visit museumonmainstreet.org. Support for MoMS has been provided by the U.S. Congress.
The mission of the Colleton Museum & Farmers Market is to preserve and promote the historical, natural, cultural, and agricultural heritage of Colleton County through the care and conservation of collections, research, interpretation, exhibitions and educational programs. Learn more: https://www.colletonmuseum.org/.
The mission of SC Humanities is to enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of all South Carolinians. Established in 1973, this 501(c)3 organization is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors comprised of community leaders from throughout the state. It presents and supports literary initiatives, lectures, exhibits, festivals, publications, oral history projects, videos, and other humanities-based experiences that directly or indirectly reach more than 250,000 citizens annually. South Carolina Humanities receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as corporate, foundation and individual donors. The National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for more than 65 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play. For exhibition description and tour schedules, visit sites.si.edu.
