Like a bracing splash of water to your face that awakens your senses, the Smithsonian Water/Ways exhibit greets you as soon as you step through the door at the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Transportation Museum.
Until Friday’s opening of the exhibit, the foyer of the museum was mostly open space — the office complex where museum director Agnes Zaiontz books tours and conducts business on the left, the museum’s permanent Tenn-Tom exhibit on the right.
Now and until March 8, water hits you as step past the threshold.
The traveling exhibit is produced and funded by the famed Smithsonian Institute, a group of museums and research centers devoted to a diverse array of subject matter.
It’s hard to imagine a broader topic than water, of course. To tell the story of water, the Smithsonian exhibit has assembled a series of eight floor-to-ceiling illustrated panels, curved and positioned in a such way as to mimic the flow of a river as it serpentines through the foray into another smaller exhibition room and finally into the main museum area where it mingles with the Tenn-Tom exhibit.
The juxtaposition there is worth noting — weaving together the subject from the Smithsonian’s macro perspective of water to a micro examination of the Tenn-Tom.
For most people, water is something to be easily taken for granted. You turn on the tap, water runs out. You get thirsty, water is a readily available source. We bathe in it, swim in it, boat in it, cook with it.
We are vaguely aware that industry and transportation rely on it, too.
A trip to the Smithsonian’s exhibit reminds us of just how essential a resource it is, how it has shaped our world, our cultures, or history, our relationships to others and the world around us.
Because the exhibit is only nominally interactive — just one touch-pad screen — it’s probably not the best choice for small children, but it’s a great learning opportunity for school-age children and, of course, adults.
Each of the eight panels cover a specific titled theme — A Water World, Where is Our Water?, What is a Watershed?, Water and Humanity, Availability of Water, Water as a Critical Resource, Harnessing the Power of Water, Conservation and Water.
An hour with the exhibit allows the visitor to both discover and rediscover what water has meant, what it means today and what it will mean in the future. Depending on your familiarity with each theme, the exhibit either broadens your knowledge or sharpens your understanding.
The exhibit has a distinct subtext of conservation, and rightly so. As the opening panel notes, the use of water has doubled population growth in the past 100 years. Like all resources, our water sources must be preserved and protected.
That Columbus was selected as one of just 10 U.S. cities to host the exhibit is something residents should not take for granted. It’s a rare treat.
The free exhibit is open Mondays though Fridays from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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