WSCC hosting exhibit celebrating Ludington’s sesquicentennial

November 12, 2023

WSCC hosting exhibit celebrating Ludington’s sesquicentennial

WSCC News is presented by West Shore Community College in partnership with Mason County Press.

VICTORY TOWNSHIP — West Shore Community College is hosting an exhibition celebrating Ludington’s sesquicentennial through its maritime legacy. Co-curated by Professor of History and Political Science Mike Nagle and Professor of Visual Arts Eden Ünlüata-Foley, the multimedia exhibition explores Ludington’s 150 years through images, sound, text, and artifacts.

The exhibition, titled “West Shore Celebrating Ludington: A Maritime Legacy” is presented at WSCC’s Manierre Dawson gallery in the college’s Arts & Sciences Building. The exhibition opened to the public on Nov. 1 and will run through Jan.31, 2024. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Sourced from Mason County Historical Society, Detroit Historical Society, photographers Todd and Brad Reed archive, and other scholarly resources, these images, sounds, texts, and artifacts afford viewers to connect to the history of Ludington from a place that is familiar and comfortable to them.

Beginning with the Native American tribes, the inner lake where the city is located (now called Pere Marquette Lake) has enabled trade, commerce, and cultural exchange by connecting inland waterways to the Great Lake we now call Lake Michigan. This exhibition explores this historical context from a maritime perspective.

“Rather than limit the narrative to a narrow perspective, the curatorial focus has been to share the findings of exhaustive research and afford the viewers an opportunity to focus on their own connection to the maritime legacy of Ludington,” said Nagle.

“Instead of taking a narrative or chronological approach, the objects and images presented in the exhibition follows the format of a memory recall,” said Professor Ünlüata-Foley. “Mirroring the ways we remember past events, this exhibition brings together these items in a seemingly randomized manner.”

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