Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling
FAIN: GI-264588-19
Jewish Museum of Maryland (Baltimore, MD 21202-4606)
Tracie Guy-Decker (Project Director: August 2018 to May 2022)
Implementation
of a traveling exhibition, website, curriculum, and public programs exploring
the history of the scrap industry in America.
The Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM) is developing Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling, a temporary, traveling exhibit that will allow visitors to explore the evolution of the American scrap industry over 250 years through the stories of people who created it – immigrants, their descendants and their successors. In addition to the 2,000-sq ft, experiential exhibit exploring scrap recycling through the lenses of history, sociology and technology, JMM intends to publish a companion book and free interpretive brochure, create a website, plan public programs, collect and curate select oral histories, and develop educational curricula. The exhibit will feature historical objects, oral histories, texts, images, multimedia, and interactives. Resources will be drawn from JMM’s collections, the archives of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), and a variety of other sources. Scrap Yard opens at JMM in 2019 and begins a national tour in 2020.
Associated Products
Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling (Exhibition)Title: Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling
Curator: Zachary Paul Levine
Abstract: On October 27, 2019, the Jewish Museum of Maryland opened the original exhibit Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling. This exhibit is the first national traveling exhibit to explore the transformation of this important American industry, and the families and communities impacted by it, over the last two hundred years. Over four years in development, the project mirrored its subject matter as it contained equal parts of planning and improvisation. A scrap dealer never knows what may be buried in a scrap pile when he purchases it, and similarly our pathway was strewn with surprises (most recently COVID 19), but in the end we believe we achieved our goals: creating an exhibit that contributes to public discourse about immigration, national identity, technological change, environmental sustainability and the economic impact of waste.
Year: 2019
Primary URL:
http://scrapyardexhibit.orgPrimary URL Description: This website was created as a companion to the in-gallery Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling exhibit and includes recorded lectures, additional information, and engagement activities.