The Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University is marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States with a special exhibition.
In 2022, with the 250th anniversary of Independence Day on the horizon, people at the Broad Art Museum started thinking about how to mark the occasion.
Senior Curator Steven Bridges says it seemed worthy of devoting the entire facility to the theme “We Are This Land.”
"The subtitle of the exhibition, which is ‘Meditations on the Great American Experiment,’ is in part both a quotation of a phrase George Washington used in his inaugural speech as President, but also this idea of slowing down, taking a beat, thinking and taking a moment to reflect on this moment and what its significance is, as well as take stock of kind of where we are now and where we’re going into the future," he said.
All three levels of the museum have been turned over to the project. Bridges says about 70% of the pieces on display come from university collections, like a backwards map of the north part of the MSU campus.
Dating from the 1870s, it likely was drawn by botanist William Beal, namesake of the university’s Beal Gardens, on the wall of his house. It was found on the back of wallpaper during a demolition project.
There are also new works.
"We also felt that it was important to bring in new voices, to invite artists to work with us to create works for this moment," Bridges said. "The exhibition has a map from 1695 as well as a work that was created a month ago.”
One of those new pieces can be found on the upper level of the Broad.
Artist Evan Roth grew up in Okemos. Now based in Berlin, Roth is known for a body of work called Skyscapes, and Bridges invited him to create one here. Video of the sky captured directly around the museum was processed through software created by Roth himself, and displayed on a vertical screen.
“He’s created an animation from that that is quite, I think, meditative, but also I think hypnotic, at least for me, but also is very, I think, dare I say, beautiful to watch and bear witness to," he said.
Next to Roth’s Skyscape is a work by world-renowned artist Julie Mehretu, who grew up in East Lansing.
Another major work brought here for this exhibition is a piece by Duane Linklater, a First Nations artist based in North Bay, Ontario. It’s a traditional tepee that, rather than standing upright, is mounted on its side.
“It’s a little bit unexpected,” Bridges said. “The tepee is behaving in a way that it typically does not behave through the way that it is then inverted and put onto the wall, and that kind of shift in perspective, for me is, I think, very important in this moment, right?"
"How can we look and see things differently?”
For Bridges, staging an exhibition this large will engage visitors in an act of civic engagement akin to foundational principals like voting or volunteering.
“I would encourage people to think about their own civic lives, if they will, and know that in joining us and engaging in this exhibition is a form of civic participation that we hope will open up more doors than they will close.”
“We Are This Land: Meditations on the Great American Experiment” is at the Broad Art Museum through March 14, 2027.
This story originally appeared on WKAR.