West Shore Community College is hosting an exhibition celebrating Ludington’s 150th year of its incorporation through its maritime legacy. Co-curated by Professor of History and Political Science Mike Nagle and Professor of Visual Arts Eden Ünlüata-Foley, this multimedia exhibition explores this legacy through images, sound, text, and artifacts.
The exhibition, titled West Shore Celebrating Ludington: A Maritime Legacy is presented at WSCC’s Manierre Dawson gallery. 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,” stated 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.”
West Shore Community College and the curators would like to thank Rebecca Berringer and the staff of the Mason County Historical Society, Jeremy Dimick from the Detroit Historical Society, Todd Reed, Brad Reed, Rachel Gaudette, Robert E. Gable for their support. Their contributions of images, videos, text, objects, and their time have made this exhibition possible. They would also like to thank the team at Lake FX Media for the video set they created.
