For the past two years, students in Cindy Falk’s Material Culture Methods class have worked together to install exhibits in the Community Gallery at the Fenimore Art Museum. Last year, half of the class created an exhibition on women’s suffrage in Otsego County on behalf of the League of Women Voters. This year, the class is splitting into five groups of four or five to create an exhibit to recognize inductees into the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce’s Hall of Fame.
The inductees include Brewery Ommegang, the Cooperstown Graduate Program, The Farmers’ Museum, Spurbeck’s Grocery, and the Susquehanna Animal Shelter. Each group of students is assigned an inductee to work with to create the story they want told about their establishment. The exhibit, titled “Celebrating Commerce and Community,” is designed to show how each establishment contributes to the community and spirit of Cooperstown.
The students have been working all semester on publicity, writing labels, finding images and artifacts, and installing the exhibit. It opens May 10th with an opening reception starting at 5:30pm. The exhibit will be up until the end of May.
The exhibit on Women’s Suffrage created by students in the Cooperstown Graduate Program.
Two community members at the opening reception for “Conversations: Local Voices on Women’s Suffrage.”
Interactives for “Conversations: Local Voices on Women’s Suffrage.”