This year, Smithsonian Libraries celebrated its 50th anniversary as a unified library system by opening not one, but two exhibits: Game Change: Elephants from Prey to Preservation and Magnificent Obsessions: Why We Collect. Smithsonian Exhibits (SIE) was thrilled to be asked to design, edit, and produce the exhibits. Here’s our tale . . . (It …
DECLASSIFIED!! Mission: DIA
Here’s a tricky one: How do you write exhibit text for a new museum when your content experts have top security clearances and can only share a fraction of their content with you? Mission: DIA offered many tricky and interesting questions. For example: will they tell me about if I ask really, really nicely? * Working on a …
Conquering the Panda Challenge
Sometimes developing exhibits can feel like a maze, with many different directions to explore and challenges to overcome. Recently, Smithsonian Exhibits (SIE) was asked to build a real maze for the Panda House at Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZP). The purpose of the interactive is for visitors to guide a panda through the …
The Path to My Next Chapter
When people ask me what inspired me to pursue a degree in Arts Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an internship at Smithsonian Exhibits, my thoughts turn to my grandfather, Benedict J. Fernandez. A dyslexic Italian-Puerto Rican man from Harlem with no degree or a stable family to lean on while growing up, …
Can You Tell the Difference?
In 1955, businesswoman, philanthropist, and collector Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887–1973) purchased the Hillwood Estate in Northwest Washington, D.C. Post directed her architects and designers to refurbish the 1920s neo-Georgian mansion into a nobler residence that would function as a fully staffed home as well as a showcase for her sophisticated collections of late eighteenth-century French …
Gone Viral
An interconnected world allows for the easy transmission of ideas, commerce, scientific discoveries, and so many other things … like communicable diseases. The National Museum of Natural History’s new exhibition, Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World, explores how microscopic pathogens can cause widespread disease outbreaks. When outbreaks occur, epidemiologists, veterinarians, public health workers, and others all …
Field Trip!
It’s almost summer vacation! The time when students and teachers get to reminisce about all the fun things that happened throughout the year. Well, we’re doing the same thing. This year, Smithsonian Exhibits had the pleasure of hosting a fifth-grade field trip. Ms. Deaton’s class, from Stratford Landing Elementary in nearby Fairfax County, Virginia, had …
A Grassroots Effort
After a long winter, it looks like spring is finally here. What better way to celebrate than by visiting Smithsonian Gardens? Smithsonian Gardens creates and manages the Smithsonian’s outdoor gardens, interiorscapes, and horticulture-related collections and exhibits. It is a “museum without walls” and one of the few gardens to be accredited by the American Alliance of …
The FBI Tour, Revisited (or, “… that’s not the Smithsonian.”)
“So, what are you working on?” It’s a pretty common question when you work at Smithsonian Exhibits. Usually, the answer is something like “A great show at the Hirshhorn!” or “We just kicked off a new project with the Zoo!” When I told my friends that I was working on a new section about multi-agency …
A Career of Making Models at the Smithsonian
By Lora Collins, 3D Studio Supervisor at Smithsonian Exhibits When I was just ten years old, my mother and I were admiring the beautiful dioramas at the National Museum of Natural History when she told me that I could make dioramas one day. I forgot about that until I was well out of art school …