I chose "Celebrating Century 21," a current exhibition at Seattle's Seattle Center, which I visited earlier this month. The city is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Seattle's world's fair ("Century 21") this year, and has many citywide exhibitions and events. The exhibit itself was really interesting, though shallow in its history. (I especially realize this especially after having read "Privatizing Public Memory"; I saw that Smithsonian exhibition in 2011.)
The exhibit has three parts. The first shows ephemera, artifacts and photographs from the 1962 Seattle fair. Another exhibition, a traveling show from the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware, examines the history of world's fairs in the United States. The third section is "Looking Forward: New Heroes," which highlighted "young visionaries applying innovative solutions to create a better society."
After reading about the exhibition in a tourism magazine in our hotel, I sought it out. I find world's fairs fascinating, and the retro-futuristic look of the 1962 Seattle fair is pure eye candy (picture Disneyland's original Tomorrowland and, of course, the Seattle Space Needle, which was built for the fair). The first exhibit didn't disappoint in that regard; the graphic design of the commemorative merchandise from the fair, and things like LPs especially recorded for the fair and uniforms from fair workers, is just dreamy.
The website for the 50th anniversary celebration is really difficult to navigate, and there are just a few paragraphs on this exhibition hidden away among "events." I can't find a review of the exhibition either. I found a couple of public radio stories on the historical importance of the fair, a science/technology exhibit that displayed babies in incubators, and a story about fiascoes during the fair.
The best link I found was the Seattle Public Library's digital collection about the fair--a good historical research resource to have bookmarked.
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