Marlboro County Museum to host Smithsonian exhibit this fall

BENNETTESVILLE, S.C. — Every innovation and invention is someone’s attempt to turn a problem into a solution. The results: Old neighborhoods revitalized, historic business districts rejuvenated, new festivals and cultural attractions generated, and much more.

“Spark! Places of Innovation,” a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution, highlights how innovation has shaped small towns across the country. The exhibition examining the ingenuity and tenacity of rural America opens at the Murchison School building in Bennettsville on Sept. 21. “Spark!” will be on view through Nov. 2.

South Carolina Humanities has chosen the Marlboro County Museum and the surrounding community 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 in 2024 and 2025. Marlboro County is the only community in the Pee Dee region that will host the exhibition during this tour.

“Spark! Places of Innovation” highlights innovation in rural America from the perspective of the people who lived it. The exhibition features stories and images from over 30 communities across the nation gathered through a crowdsourcing initiative. These places of innovation examined their existing assets, characteristics, people, resources, and history to tackle the challenges of today with creative solutions and chart new directions for their future. Through photographs, hands-on interactives, objects, and videos, “Spark!” reveals the leaders, challenges, successes, and future of innovation in each featured town.

The exhibit is organized into four different categories of innovation: social, artistic, technological, and cultural. Examples of innovation include the Art & Environment Initiative in Meadville, Pennsylvania, that collaborates with community members through public art projects that revitalize, beautify, and help transform shared spaces. And the University of New Mexico-Taos Hub of Internet-based Vocation and Education (HIVE) that brought together educators, environmentalists, and local leaders to create coworking space, a small business support center, and on-site UMN-Taos classes.

“We are so thrilled to be hosting this exhibit,” said Lynn McQueen, Museum and Cultural Affairs Director for Marlboro County. “It will allow us to reflect on our past, our present, and our future as we see ourselves reflected in the featured communities. We want it to ‘spark’ conversations about innovation and be a springboard for us to make the positive changes we all want to see.”

Designed for small-town cultural organizations, “Spark!” will serve as a community meeting place for conversations about innovation. With the support and guidance of state humanities councils, host communities will develop complementary exhibits, host public programs, and facilitate educational initiatives to raise people’s understanding about their own history, the joys and challenges of living rural, how change has impacted their community, and prompt discussion of goals for the 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 organizations. “Spark!” was inspired by “Places of Invention,” an exhibition developed by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. To learn more about “Spark!

Places of Innovation” and other Museum on Main Street exhibitions, visit www.museumonmainstreet.org.