Stamford Museum's MAIZE Exhibit Opens June 24

Stamford, CT – The Stamford Museum & Nature Center announces the opening of MAIZE: Mysteries of an Ancient Grain. Presented in the Stamford Museum galleries, the exhibition debuts on Saturday, June 24, and continues through Monday, September 4, 2017.

Corn – or maize, as it is called in most countries – was first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico 8,000 years ago, and humans have deliberately altered and adapted this edible grain to meet their needs ever since. Today, maize is the largest production crop in the world.

This hands-on and interactive exhibition at the Stamford Museum allows you to explore the science and history of maize. Learn about fascinating advances in the science of plant genetics, the process of evolution, and how “useful mutations” can address world health and hunger issues. Discover how maize was adopted by Native Americans across North and South America through historic and rare corn-related objects from the Permanent Collection of the Stamford Museum, including archaeological material from the Stamford area that is more than 500 years old. Puzzles, live animals, and even a photo-op with a cutie corn cob make this a family-friendly learning experience.

“This exhibition explores the science behind the domestication of corn,” says Stamford Museum Curator Kirsten Reinhardt. “We’ve added objects from our Permanent Collection to illustrate the importance of corn as an economic and ceremonial driver in the native communities of North and South America.  It’s a great opportunity to display artifacts from our Collection that are rarely seen.”

The SM&NC’s summer exhibition will also feature several striking large-scale photographs of agricultural landscapes created by John E. Dowell, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Printmaking at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. An artist and master-printer for more than four decades, Dowell’s fine art prints, paintings, and photographs have been featured in more than 50 one-person exhibitions. His work is also represented in the permanent collections of 70 museum and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. 

Additionally, SM&NC Environmental Educators will lead “Summer Corn-ucopia,” a weekly hands-on program in the Stamford Museum galleries on Wednesdays, 3:30-4 pm, from July 12 through August 16. Each week we’ll explore this a-maizing grain -- how it has been used, who likes to eat it, and how to cook it. We might learn how to grind corn, create a corn craft, plant some corn relatives to take home, or cook corn muffins over a campfire.

What’s more, these Summer Corn-ucopia programs will feature visits from some of the exotic residents of the SM&NC’s Heckscher WILD! exhibit that have a taste for corn or spend their lives among the world’s cornfields and granaries. Danny, one of our resident corn snakes, can’t wait to say hello!

This exhibition is developed and managed by the Paleontological Research Institution and its Museum of the Earth located in Ithaca, N.Y. Funding for this exhibition is from the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program DBI-0820619.

Don't miss this opportunity to explore evolution in action through history, art, and science in Maize: Mysteries of an Ancient Grain. The Stamford Museum galleries are open Monday–Saturday, 9 am–5 pm; Sunday, 11 am-5 pm.

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Submitted by Fairfield, CT

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