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September 2009
Museum and Museum-Related News items are listed in descending chronological order.
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WORKERS CULTURE SERIES KICKS OFF THURSDAY
Help kick off the 2009-2010 season by planning to attend this week's brown bag:
- Thursday, September 17
- "Performance and Protest: Gender and Labor in the 1935 Detroit Housewives Strike"
- Ann Folino White
- MSU Residential College in the Arts and Humanities
This talk is co-sponsored by the Center for Gender in Global Context and the Women's Resource Center
- Next up:
- Wednesday, September 23
- "When Lies Becomes History: The Seeberville Murders, the Press
and the 1913 Michigan Copper Strike"
Steve Lehto
- Author, Lawyer and Independent Scholar
"Our Daily Work / Our Daily Lives" is an MSU program that focuses on the artistic traditions of workers and on workplaces as contexts for the expression of workers culture. The richness and diversity of workers' experiences and workers culture is explored and presented through an ongoing series of exhibits, lectures, and presentations; writing and research projects; reunions; and demonstrations and discussions. The program was established in 1992 and is coordinated by the Michigan Traditional Arts Program at the MSU Museum and the Labor Education Program in the College of Social Science's School of Labor and Industrial Relations. In addition to a brown-bag lecture series, the MSU Museum maintains historical and contemporary artifacts symbolizing workers culture, and has conducted research and produced special exhibitions with workers culture as the central theme.
Brown-bag programs are presented free of charge at 12:15 - 1:30 p.m. in the MSU Museum auditorium. Limited visitor parking is available in front of the building and at the Grand River Ramp 6 one block away.
"Our Daily Work / Our Daily Lives" was recognized with a 2003 Michigan State University "Excellence in Diversity" award, honoring its innovation and outstanding efforts to promote and achieve diversity.
Read more about the program here:
http://news.msu.edu/story/6815/&topic_id=3
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SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S 5TH ANNUAL MUSEUM DAY IS SEPT. 26
On Saturday, Sept.26, the Michigan State University Museum will take part in the fifth annual Museum Day, presented by Smithsonian magazine. A celebration of culture, learning and the dissemination of knowledge, Smithsonian's Museum Day reflects the spirit of the magazine, and emulates the free-admission policy of the Smithsonian Institution's Washington, DC-based properties. Last year, upwards of 200,000 people attended Museum Day, with all 50 states participating plus Puerto Rico.
The MSU Museum is Michigan's first Smithsonian Institution affiliate, and has collaborated with the Smithsonian on research, exhibitions, publications and programs. Museum visitors can learn more about Smithsonian programs, as well as the benefits of joint membership to both institutions.
Founded in 1970 with the launch of Smithsonian magazine, Smithsonian Media-comprising Smithsonian magazine, Air & Space, goSmithsonian, Smithsonian Publishing Digital Network, Smithsonian Books and advertising for Smithsonian Channel-allows the intellectually curious to indulge and engage their passions for history, the arts, science, the natural world, culture and travel. Smithsonian Media's flagship publication, Smithsonian magazine, has a circulation of more than two million. This multimedia network is also affiliated with the world's most visited museum and research complexes at the Smithsonian Institution. For more information, visit www.smithsonian.com, www.airspacemag.com, and www.gosmithsonian.com
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MSU MUSEUM'S FOLK FESTIVAL INCLUDED IN LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ARCHIVES
In September, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress hosted a two-day event including a tribute, a symposium, and a concert -- celebrating the acquisition of the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) Collection by the Center's archive. This national archive will include photos, video and audio files from the Michigan State University Museum.
Founded in 1934, the NCTA created the first National Folk Festival (still being produced annually), and pioneered the national and international touring of grassroots artists. Out of this experience, NCTA has created an archive of original audio and moving image recordings of traditional artists, musicians and dancers dating from the 1930s. The collection contains classic recordings of now-legendary artists (such as Tommy Jarrell, Elizabeth Cotten, Wade Mainer, John Cephas, Edith Butler, and the Blind Boys of Alabama), as well as the only extant recordings of many artists.
Included in this collection is material from National Folk Festival from 1999-2001, produced by the MSU Museum and City of East Lansing. The National stays for three years and moves on to a new destination. Meanwhile, the MSU Museum now produces the Great Lakes Folk Festival, and continues to document and present traditional arts expressions in our nation's cultural heritage.
These historic folklife recordings are now being digitized, and many of them are available to researchers in the Folklife Reading Room at the Library of Congress.
"We are honored to have these recordings of performances and programs at the National Folk Festival when it was in East Lansing to our nation's foremost library," says C. Kurt Dewhurst, curator of folklife and cultural heritage at the MSU Museum. "These collections will be used by scholars and the general public to better understand the rich heritage of American folklife. This collection also further connects the ongoing folklife research of the MSU Museum in notable ways to the work of the American Folklife Center that is dedicated to research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, publication, and training," adds Dewhurst, who is also chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Learn more about these legends and legacies:
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Symposia/LegendsLegacies/
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MSU MUSEUM ASSISTS WITH NEW 'QUILT BARNS OF OLD MISSION PENINSULA'
MSU Museum staff encouraged and advised the development of a new quilt-barn tourism trail in Old Mission Peninsula (Traverse City) in time for fall color season. This project was conceived of and led by Evelyn Johnson, Michigan Barn Preservation Network board member and author of "Barns of Old Mission Peninsula" (2006). Johnson and others discovered and were inspired by quilt barn tours in other states and elsewhere in Michigan. This grassroots project brought private, farming, and business barn owners together to create another reason for a fall color tour - and express their pride in this lovely place - Old Mission Peninsula.
Ten barns throughout the peninsula now sport painted quilt block designs that add to the landscape and surprise folks as they drive or bicycle.
Julie Avery, Beth Donaldson, Lynne Swanson, and Mary Worrall participated along with Research Associates Steve Stier and Vera Wiltse. An MSU Museum-produced program is also being planned for the fall. The "Barns of Old Mission Peninsula" publication is also for sale at the Museum Store.
See photos and take the tour here:
http://mibarn.net/Events/QuiltBarnsofOldMissionPeninsula.html
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