“Voices and Votes” is based on a major exhibition currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. This Museum on Main Street adaptation will have many of the same dynamic features: historical and contemporary photos; educational and archival video; engaging multimedia interactives with short games and additional footage, photos, and information; and historical objects like campaign souvenirs, voter memorabilia, and protest material.

In Congregations, Sarina Angell gently guides us to look closely at her delicate artwork and then take that attention to detail out into the world, finding beauty in places we often overlook, collecting beauty and delight as pivot points to the devastating events that can otherwise consume our thoughts. Beauty is a powerful ally in an unjustly damaged world; beauty invites a visceral response, invites wonder, invites awe.

Wendy Young never met a stranger; not only does she have the ability to talk to anyone anywhere about anything, most of the people she meets open up to her as soon as she introduces herself, inviting her into their homes, studios, storefronts, and shops, sharing their life stories on video, inviting her to take their pictures – welcoming her into their worlds. The pictures she makes might make some viewers uncomfortable, the context in which these narratives are shown might make others equally uncomfortable. That’s the point. We need to cross borders without guns, we need to listen to one another in ways that are not polarizing, even when we disagree.