18 May 2016

MUSEUM’S ANNUAL EXHIBIT TO OPEN JUNE 2

Telluride, Colorado (May 18, 2016) – The Telluride Historical Museum will celebrate the opening of its annual exhibit Treasure Maps: Cartography of the American Southwest on June 2 from 6-8pm. This free event will take place at the Telluride Historical Museum and is open to all ages. Complimentary adult refreshments and appetizers will be served, and there will be exciting activities for all ages.

Treasure Maps: Cartography of the American Southwest is the Museum’s 2016-17 annual exhibit, exploring shifting perspectives of the Southwest through the history of the maps that depict it. Because maps are necessarily a compromise of limited resources and knowledge, the American Southwest is a template in which the inaccuracies, blank spaces, and mythical elements tell the stories of its exploration and the possibilities that the American southwest has represented.

As part of the exhibit, the Telluride Historical Museum collaborated with Telluride Mountain School, Pinhead Institute, Telluride Institute, The Hub, and Alpine Lumber to create an Augmented Reality Sandbox. The AR Sandbox uses a projector and a 3 dimensional camera to view the surface of the sand and project real time topographic lines onto the sand’s surface. The sandbox will also simulate watersheds, and after the exhibit closes in March 2017, the sandbox will be co- owned by Pinhead Institute, Telluride Mountain School, and Telluride Institute, where it will be an ongoing part of community watershed curricula. In order to construct the AR Sandbox, the Telluride Historical Museum has enlisted the help of Telluride Mountain School students who have recently returned from their spring experimental learning trip to study geography in Hawaii, and have been working diligently on design and construction in order to have the sandbox prepared for the June 2 opening.

For more information, please contact Lucas Fredericks, Programs and Exhibits Coordinator at the Telluride Historical Museum at (970) 728-3344 x 4, or email lucas@telluridemuseum.org.