SYLACAUGA, Ala. – “We have been quietly working on a project for months and can finally talk about it,” explained Isabel Anderson Comer Museum and Arts Center’s Executive Director Judy Green. “The Comer Museum was one of six rural museums in Alabama chosen by the Smithsonian Institute to host a traveling exhibit.”
“Spark! Places Of Innovation” is a project sponsored by the Smithsonian and the Alabama Humanities Alliance. There is a lot of planning and work to be done, but the exhibit will take place in the summer of 2025.
The exhibit will explore the unique combination of places, people, and circumstances that sparks innovation and invention in rural communities. Inspired by an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, the exhibition features stories gathered from diverse communities across the nation.
Photographs, engaging interactives, objects, videos, and digital stories bring a multi-layered experience to reveal the leaders, challenges, successes, and future of innovation in each town.
Technical, social, cultural, or artistic – every sort of innovation story is as unique as each community and will be represented in “Spark! Places of Innovation.”
“I would like to thank Tracy Thomas of the B. B. Comer Memorial Library, Tara Douglas of the Sylacauga Beautification Council, and Drs. Ted and Shirley Spears of the Sylacauga Arts Council and the B.B. Comer Memorial Public Library Foundation. Without their support, the Smithsonian would not have chosen our museum for this prestigious honor,” said Green.
The exhibit will tell the story of our community, along with other similar communities across the nation.
“It will tell where we’ve been and where we are going,” Green explained. “We are very excited and honored to have been chosen for this educational and historical exhibit.”
