Humanities Nebraska (HN) is now accepting community applications for “SPARK! Places of Innovation,” a Smithsonian Museum on Main Street (MoMS) exhibition that will tour Nebraska from June 2026 through March 2027. Applications are due February 15, 2025.
Inspired by an exhibition at the National Museum of American History, SPARK! is specially designed for small museums by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). It uses art, photography, artifacts, and interactives to explore the unique combination of places, people, and circumstances that spark innovation and invention in rural communi ties across the nation.
SPARK! offers a springboard for diverse local programming in the humanities, sciences, and arts. Visitors will be inspired to learn how innovation has shaped their own communities and how they may be innovators themselves. Community members will come together in conversation about their history, present, and future.
Applications will be accepted from libraries and other community centers as well as from museums. Nebraska sites will be selected to host the exhibition for about six weeks each between June 2026 and March 2027, with support and materials from Humanities Ne braska and the Museum on Main Street program. The selected hosts will be asked to help promote the exhibition, develop a companion local exhibit, and offer educational program ming related to the theme.
An application and more information about hosting SPARK! is available on the HN website at humanitiesnebraska.org or by contacting Mary Yager at mary@humanitiesnebraska.org or (402) 474-2131. Applications are due February 15, 2025.
This exhibition will be brought to Nebraska with the help of local funding support.
Interested sponsors may contact Erin L. Moran, director of development, via email: erin@humanitiesnebraska.org.
“SPARK! Places of Innovation” is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration of the Smithsonian Institution and Humanities Nebraska. Museum on Main Street is a partnership between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and state humanities councils nationwide that serves the small-town museums and citizens of rural America. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.
Humanities Nebraska is a private nonprofit with a mission to help people explore what connects us and makes us human. HN is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, an appropriation from the Nebraska Legislature, private donations, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, a public-private partnership with state dollars matching private dollars to benefit the arts and humanities in Nebraska.