When Agnes Zaiontz saw the Water/Ways traveling Smithsonian museum exhibition in Pickwick, Tennessee last year, she immediately loved it.
“I thought, ‘Ah, this is grand,'” she said.
Zaiontz is the executive director of Columbus’ Tennessee-Tombigbee Transportation Waterway Museum on Seventh Street, and in January it will host the Smithsonian exhibition. Columbus will be the only city in northeast Mississippi where the exhibition will stop.
Produced and funded through the traveling exhibition arm of the Smithsonian Institute, Water/Ways aims to show the physical and cultural importance of water all over the world. It touches on everything from the locations of major rivers and other bodies of water and how much water Earth holds to the significance water has in various world religions, according to the Smithsonian’s website.
“It talks about how we use water to live,” said Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority Administrator Mitch Mays. “It does have what I would call a bent toward conservation, but also environment — keeping our waterways clean and clear. It talks about how water is used. People, obviously, when they think of water they think of drinking water — how cities and counties have water to provide for their citizens. But it’s also used for industry and commerce and recreation. So this exhibit kind of talks about all those different aspects of how we use water.”
Earlier this year, Mays traveled to the coast with a local logistics committee to see the exhibition and learn how to set it up. He said the exhibition is full of interactive displays for both children and adults and will fit nicely alongside the exhibits at the transportation museum.
“I think the Smithsonian Water/Ways exhibit will complement our museum very well. It goes together,” he said. “… From our perspective, we’re more concerned with commerce on the waterway, and the Smithsonian exhibit does go into that, so they both fit together very nice.”
He and Zaiontz said they hope to begin marketing the exhibition soon and particularly are interested in working with area schools. Mays said they are planning an art competition open to third graders in Lowndes and Monroe counties, the winning entries of which will be on display alongside the exhibition.
The details of the art project are not ironed out yet, Zaiontz said, but she’s excited for students — and everyone else — to see the exhibition.
“It’s going to really enhance the museum,” she said. “It’s going to draw a lot of people — students, adults, civic clubs, everything — into the museum. And of course when they come to see that one, then they’re going to see ours too, then they’re going to go back out into the community and tell other people about our museum.”
Mays said he hopes the museum’s location downtown — close both to the Lee Home and the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library — encourages visitors to make a day of learning local history.
Water/Ways opens at the Transportation Museum on Jan. 25 and will run until March 8.
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