From one-component rock-carved tools for opening fruits, building shelters and protecting the vulnerable to multi-component smartphones that call your mom on command, take pictures in the dark and communicate with space, the South Florida Museum celebrates the earth and human advances with its latest visiting exhibit, "Things Come Apart."
Courtesy of the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service, the exhibit will be on display at the Bradenton museum through August 18.
One artist whose work is featured in "Things Come Apart" is Todd McLellan, who took household objects apart, counted their components, then arranged them in patterns and photographed them.
He also threw some of those components up in the air for pictures and encased them in acrylic.
The exhibition contains 37 photographs of deconstructed objects, and five that sit frozen in acrylic, including an 1897 mantle clock.
“It’s very understandable in its mechanisms and gears and springs,” said Matthew Woodside, the Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions.
A disassembled handheld game system, however, doesn’t necessarily lend itself to the same type of machine-style familiarity.
“Some of the other ones you just see the electronic circuitry," Woodside said. "There’s no understanding visually of how that was all put together, but it’s based on decades and decades of scientific advancement.”
That scientific advancement always begins with the next generation. That’s why there is a special hands-on “SparkLab” for creation and innovation, made possible through support from the Smithsonian Woman's Committee.
“Younger visitors and children of all ages can play,” said Woodside.
It’s where 3-year-old Aniston Franks and her dad Andrew sat.
“We’re building stuff,” explained Aniston.
It started as a simple box.
And then it turned into a “doctor hotel,” or as Aniston further explained, a hospital.
Aniston’s hospital could be our next advance.
To learn more about "Things Come Apart," visit the temporary exhibits page on the South Florida Museum's website.
