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This Isabel Anderson Comer Museum & Arts Center is proud to announce its hosting of the traveling Smithsonian exhibit Spark! Places of Innovation !! The Smithsonian Institution, in collaboration with Alabama Humanities Alliance and Innovate Alabama, has chosen the Comer museum as its first stop in the state for this exciting experience!
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Learn how Sylacauga has contributed to the greater innovation of our state and nation, and how small towns all across the country have played a role in shaping modern America. Explore cutting-edge, interactive displays highlighting the innovations of small, rural communities just like ours.
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Don't miss this opportunity to experience the grandeur of the Smithsonian right here in our city!!
The story of human history is written in inventions and innovations. People are problem- solvers. Sometimes we invent. More often, we innovate—we introduce a fresh idea or an invention into use in some way that creates a new way of doing or thinking.
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Invention can happen anywhere and it’s happening right now in small towns across America. Rural Americans are creating new products, taking risks, meeting challenges together, and seizing upon exciting opportunities that change local life and sometimes reach far beyond.
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Spark! Places of Innovation will highlight innovation in rural America from the perspective of the people who lived it! Their words, images, and experiences gathered through an ambitious crowdsourcing initiative will be 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.
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Spark! Places of Innovation explores the unique combination of places, people, and circumstances that sparks innovation and invention in rural communities. Inspired by an exhibition by the National Museum of American History, the exhibition features stories gathered from diverse communities across the nation. Photographs, engaging interactives, objects, videos, and augmented reality bring a multilayered experience to reveal the leaders, challenges, successes, and future of innovation in each town.
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Spark! Places of Innovation 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.
Join us in celebrating Sylacuaga's proud history of innovation and industry with Spark! Places of Innovation . Exhibit begins June 20th and will be on display at the Comer museum until July 19th. The museum will be hosting an opening reception for the event on June 26th, 5-8 pm. ​
Spark! Places of Innovation has been made possible in Sylacauga by the Alabama Humanities Alliance and Innovate Alabama.
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Spark! is a Museum on Main Street exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution. It is inspired by Places of Invention, an exhibition developed by the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.
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Museum on Main Street is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide that serves the small-town cultural organizations and citizens of rural America.
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