Looking Back at Last Year
Exhibits: 2023
Revisit phenomenal exhibits that were on view at the Museum last year. Following Mr. Hansen’s example, we seek to build up our community by sharing local and global art.
WWI is known as the Great War and the ‘war to end all wars.’ America joined the fray in 1917. Out of more than two million Americans who served in World War I, more than 80,000 were from Kansas. This unique exhibit focuses on the harrowing experiences of Kansas soldiers by using vivid, first-hand accounts of their ordeals, trials, and tribulations. Visitors learn the reasoning behind using trenches in the war; what the trenches looked like; and what life was like in the trenches.
The exhibit includes three interactive elements in the display:
- Vet Vignettes – With information and accounts of Kansas, American, Allied, and Central Power troops in a simple to navigate touch-screen format
- Gas Attack – Where users are challenged to respond quickly and prepare themselves for a gas attack before it is too late
- Not Five Star Food – Which explores a WWI era mess kit and the recipes they might have used on the battlefield
A very special thanks goes to the Earl Bane Foundation, City of Salina Kansas, and the Friends of the Smoky Hill Museum for helping make this exhibit possible. The Smoky Hill Museum also gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the many individuals who shaped the thinking during exhibition development, including Doran Cart, Senior Curator at the National WWI Museum and Memorial, in Kansas City.
In allowing these student artists to display their work in the Museum, our hope is to inspire them; to fuel their passion for art, and to encourage them to continue creating past their high school years.
Schools participating in this year’s show are as follows:
- Brewster
- Cornerstone Classical
- Hill City
- Phillipsburg
- Pike Valley
- Norton Community
- Republic County
- Smith Center
Like many objects rooted in the everyday, quilts have the capacity to communicate stories about the context in which they were made and used. They represent maps of the quilters’ lives—living records of cultural traditions, rites of passage, relationships, political and spiritual beliefs, landmark events, and future aspirations. In the same way, a map is a pocket-sized abstraction of the world beyond what can be seen; in a quilt, a maker’s choice of fabric and design reveals insights into the topography of her world and place within it.
Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts invites viewers to read quilts as maps, tracing the paths of individual stories and experiences that illuminate larger historic events and cultural trends. Spanning the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, the exhibition brings together 18 quilts from the collection of the American Folk Art Museum, New York, representing a range of materials, motifs, and techniques—from traditional early American quilts to more contemporary sculptural assemblage. The quilts in Handstitched Worlds show us how this too-often overlooked medium balances creativity with tradition, individuality with collective zeitgeist.
From the mind of acclaimed artist, Sean Kenney, Animal Super Powers showcases larger-than-life sculptures of creatures who have evolved to possess their very own “super powers” and invites guests to learn the science behind them.
Produced by Imagine Exhibitions, Inc., Animal Super Powers is chock-full of STEAM content and will inspire budding artists, engineers, zoologists, and biologists to expand their imaginations, get curious and explore in an experience that both educates and excites.
The sculptures and exhibits in Animal Super Powers explore the evolutionary, biological, and environmental reasons for amazing animal adaptations such as shapeshifting, super-strength, echolocation, and limb regeneration and asks guests to imagine themselves with the same abilities.
Combining the world’s most beloved toy brick with the mythology of super heroes, Animal Super Powers provides an entertaining platform through which visitors can appreciate the wonders of the natural world.
Tom Zaller, CEO of Imagine Exhibitions shared, “Imagine Exhibitions is proud to partner with Sean Kenney to bring the creative vision of Animal Super Powers to the Hansen Museum. Sean’s art is gravity-defying, and inspires us to look at ourselves and the world around us with from an incredible new perspective.”
Majestic yet fragile, birds connect us with the natural world. Heralding each sunrise and gathering at dusk, these harbingers of seasonal and environmental change endlessly fascinate and inspire. All-new work by the world’s most talented artists provides a splendid array of perspectives and insights.
Organized annually since 1976 by the world-renown Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, the juried exhibition has featured thousands of artists from around the world and is widely recognized as one of the best showcasing avian art. More than 500 artists submitted works for the 2022 show, with 118 selected for inclusion, 50 of which made the trip to the Hansen Museum as part of the traveling exhibition. A fully illustrated, color catalog accompanies each Birds in Art exhibition and is available upon request.
In addition to paintings in watercolor, oil, and acrylic; sculptures in stone, wood, wire, aluminum, and bronze; and drawings in graphite, pastel, chalk, and charcoal, the exhibition includes various mediums – from cut paper and scratchboard to serigraphy, woodcut, linocut, and etching. Textile art is included from two first-time artists: Jim Hay, from Japan, who incorporated machine-sewn kimono into his whimsical work, and Canadian Sue Sherman, whose quilt depicts three monk parakeets.
NOTORIOUS explores some colorful characters that called Kansas home between 1850 – 1950. These men and women have been given the title NOTORIOUS, but has it rightly been bestowed? Through the passage of time, perspectives change and reality can give way to legend. Lines begin to blur just exactly who is truly deserving of the title NOTORIOUS. From naughty to nervy, noble to nefarious, the NOTORIOUS traveling exhibit introduces visitors to some unforgettable Kansas characters.
NOTORIOUS offers three hands-on activities to spur engagement. Test your skill as an eyewitness with a touch screen-based puzzle. Then, get your hands on a set of dowsing rods and decide for yourself if they work. There’s also a scavenger hunt to help visitors explore the exhibit. The interactive components are designed for all ages, deepen the experience, challenge visitors, and offer loads of fun. Come prepared for a picture, the exhibit includes a very amusing photo opportunity.