Art & Commerce in the History City

Photo courtesy of Visit Savannah Facebook and @telfair on Twitter 

The annual Southeastern Museum Conference took place last week in the historically pertinent city of Savannah, Georgia and this year’s presentations, discussions, and events did not disappoint.  While I lean toward collection or exhibition-centric presentations, I heard from many other attendees that all were insightful and they have seen ways they could implement those ideas at their particular site or museum.  

For me, I particularly enjoyed hearing about how two art museums and a history museum used their quirky collection items and curated interesting and well attended exhibits for their community.  Two examples that really stuck out were an art museum used an overall theme of using 18th century William Hogarth prints as a “Where’s Waldo.”  To do this they picked several items from each print and found those in their collection for a case and the visitor needed to find them in the original work.  The other was a history museum, the curator was also teaching a museum college class, contacted many museums a certain distance away from them and asked for their weirdest or most different piece in their collection.  With all of those loaned items, they curated an exhibit that was interesting on fact of it made one consider how each organization decides what collecting policy was in place.  

I, myself, am going to try and use these and some of the other examples discussed in my own exhibit cases on a smaller scale.  When I consider ideas for exhibits at my institution, I like to display the neat objects but still throw a learning aspect into the display for my audience.  Whether it is through the normal short text panel or Fun Facts, the ideas mentioned in the presentation sparked interest in doing some new ways of exhibiting objects.  Everyone has those items stored at their institution that they do not really know what to do with, and these are just a few solutions.

           

The evening events were equally entertaining because this is the best time for all conference goers to gather at different museums around Savannah, see the building and artifacts, have a snack and hop on the trolley and move to the next site on the route.  I started at the Owens-Thomas House, an early 19th century home built in the finest English Regency style.  From there moving to the Telfair Academy to see the famed Bird Girl statue and finally ending up at the Jepson Center to see some of the Telfair’s contemporary holdings.

All in all, the SEMC annual event was well worth attending, and I hope to go again to see and meet others museum professionals from all over the southeast.  In the meantime, I will use the information and ideas I was presented with and put them into practice at my own workplace. 

Ainsley Powell

Assistant Librarian and Archivist

Saint Mary’s School, Raleigh, NC