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Museum on Main Street


Coming to South Dakota in May 2024…
SPARK! Places of Innovation

Crossroads Main

Cheyenne River Youth Project

Rapid City Public Library

Crossroads exhibit

Centennial Stone Church

Crossroads Sign

Dacotah Prairie Museum

Sinte Gleska University Sicangu Heritage Center

In cooperation with The Smithsonian Institution, SDHC is pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street traveling exhibition, “Spark! Places of Innovation,” on tour from May 2024 to March 2025.

Spark! Places of Innovation explores the unique combination of places, people, and circumstances that sparks innovation and invention in rural communities. Technical, social, cultural, artistic, or a combination of all of these– every innovation is as unique as each community. Inspired by an exhibition by the National Museum of American History, the exhibition features stories gathered from diverse communities across the nation. Photographs, engaging interactives, objects, videos, and augmented reality bring a multilayered experience to reveal the leaders, challenges, successes, and future of innovation in each town.

Five venues have been chosen throughout South Dakota to host this traveling exhibition: Eagle Butte, Rapid City, Huron, Aberdeen, and Mission.

In each of the five Spark! tour locations, the host venues will contribute their own programming to give the exhibition a unique, locally-based context. While SDHC does provide financial assistance and logistical support to the venues at each Spark! tour site, the exhibit will be unique and representative of different themes across our state.

There is so much to learn from the story of rural America!

The story of human history is written in inventions and innovations. People are problem- solvers. Sometimes we invent. More often, we innovate—we introduce a fresh idea or an invention into use in some way that creates a new way of doing or thinking.

Invention can happen anywhere and it’s happening right now in small towns across America. Rural Americans are creating new products, taking risks, meeting challenges together, and seizing upon exciting opportunities that change local life and sometimes reach far beyond.

SPARK! Tour Information

 
May 18 – June 29, 2024               Cheyenne River Youth Project, Eagle Butte
                                                               https://lakotayouth.org/
                                                        



July 6 – August 17, 2024             Rapid City Public Library, Rapid City
                                                              https://www.rapidcitylibrary.org/




August 24 – October 5, 2024      Centennial Stone Church, Huron
                                                               https://www.thedakotalandmuseum.org/



October 12 – January 11, 2025     Dacotah Prairie Museum, Aberdeen
                                                                 https://dacotahprairiemuseum.org/


January 18 – March 1, 2025      Sinte Gleska University Sicangu Heritage Center, Mission
                                                             https://www.sintegleska.edu/heritage-center.html

For the most current and up-to-date information on “SPARK!” events and programming in each community, please use the individual venue contact information provided to contact the venue directly.