Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe Through July 5 This multimedia, interactive traveling exhibition explores the extraordinary discoveries made by the Hubble Space Telescope, which will be 19 years old in April 2009. The exhibition features spectacular backlit color images and includes numerous interactive displays to help visitors learn about astronomy and space science.

Casting Tradition: Contemporary Brassworking in Ghana
Through July 2009

This exhibition is a collaboration with Raymond Silverman, U-M Professor of History of Art and Afroamerican and African Studies. It is the product of a partnership between the Exhibit Museum and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Museum (KNUSTM), sponsored by the American Association of Museums, that allowed Silverman to spend five weeks in Ghana working with his colleague, Gilbert Amegatcher, a Professor of Art and Design at KNUST, to conduct the research for the exhibition. Amegatcher then spent five weeks with Silverman at the Exhibit Museum processing the research material and designing the installation. Distance learning technology was used to create a virtual collaborative environment for their students who assisted in planning the exhibition.

The tradition of lost-wax casting has been practiced among the Akan people of Ghana for at least 500 years. "Casting Tradition" examines how the traditions associated with casting metal evolved, especially over the last 100 years. Particular attention is given to the relationship between technology, creativity, and the market.

The exhibit features over 50 brass objects commissioned from the metalworkers of the town of Krofrom, including pendants, beads, boxes, bowls, and other objects. Large photos and interpretive labels present the history of lost-wax casting in Ghana, and two multimedia displays present the casting process from start to finish, as well as a series of interviews with some of Krofrom's brass casters.

4th Floor Landing:
Journeys of the Bison Hunters
Through August 2009

"Journeys of the Bison Hunters," a new exhibition on the Museum's 4th floor, tells a story of bison hunters and regional traders who lived in small mud-walled villages near modern Roswell, New Mexico, between AD 1275 and 1450. Archaeology suggests that these villagers devoted a great deal of effort to the hunt, traveling hundreds of miles to the east into the southern plains of Texas in search of bison. They then trekked great distances to the west to trade the products of the hunt--especially dried meat and bison robes--with pueblo farmers in the heart of the Southwest, for which they received corn, pottery, turquoise, obsidian, and marine shells. Their hunting forays brought the Roswell villagers into intense competition with other bison hunters, and gradually they were forced to abandon the hunt altogether, taking up instead the role of middlemen in the burgeoning trade between plains and pueblos. The competition finally erupted in warfare, and the Roswell villages were attacked and burned, the survivors fleeing to the west to join some of the pueblos in central New Mexico. The exhibit highlights the research of U-M archaeologist Professor John Speth. It was developed by LSA senior and Museum docent Nikole Bork, who graduates this spring with a BA in Anthropology (with honors), and a minor in Classics.

At the U-M Shapiro Library:
The World's Biggest Experiment: At the Frontiers of Particle Physics

Curated by U-M theoretical physicist Aaron Pierce, and gives background information about particle physics in general and the Large Hadron Collider project in particular. This summer, scientists plan to re-activate the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator complex, to explore the validity and limitations of the Standard Model, the current theoretical picture for particle physics. The Large Hadron Colider was built 40 stories under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), in collaboration with over 8,000 physicists from over 85 countries and hundreds of universities and laboratories.
    A particle accelerator (also known as an atom smasher) uses electric fields to propel electrically-charged particles to high speeds and large magnets to contain them. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator.
    Professor Pierce is a theorist who studies the phenomenology of particle physics beyond the Standard Model, Collider physics, and connections between physics and cosmology. His PhD is from University of California, Berkeley (2002).