Atheneum Visitors Center launches new monthly Curator's Table program
June 8, 2016
Have you ever wondered what lies on the shelves behind closed doors or in the vault of museums that are not on display or in an exhibit?
On Saturday, June 11, USI's Historic New Harmony and the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites will launch a new monthly program called the Curator's Table. This program will allow visitors a chance to look at items in the Historic New Harmony collection that are not on display and engage with the museum curator.
Amanda Bryden, collections manager of Historic New Harmony, will be at the Atheneum Visitors Center in New Harmony, Indiana from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to talk about a variety of items pulled from the archives of the collection. Each month, Bryden will bring out a variety of items from the diverse collection to display in a show-and-tell type program.
"Museums and historic sites typically only have about 3 to 5 percent of their collection on exhibit at any one time," Bryden said. "Items are often rotated to ensure the integrity of the object is maintained and to preserve them from the elements, which can often facilitate their deterioration," she said.
For the initial program, the collection displayed will be a variety of everyday items, as well assome that are unique to New Harmony from the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the items on display will include Harmonist pottery, pennants from New Harmony's centennial celebration in 1914 and a road sign from the 1940's with a caricature of Father Rapp leading the way to New Harmony.
The pottery was discovered during an archaeological dig by USI students in the 1970's, and pieced together following the dig..
"With television shows such as "Antiques Roadshow," people have become more interested in hearing the stories behind items from the past," Bryden said. "We have artifacts ranging from decorative arts, books and maps, to important documents from New Harmony history as well as our nation's history."
For more information, contact Erin McCracken Merris at emccracken@usi.edu or 812-682-4488.