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Smithsonian Treasures

The Smithsonian Treasures project sees sound artists and musicians all over the world producing a series of compositions inspired by individual works from the Smithsonian collection, the world’s largest museum complex – reimagining images and scenes of history, art, science and culture through sound.

You can explore the project in a full-screen, interactive online exhibition by hitting the button below, and listen to and find out more about each piece using the player.

To find out more about each item and the inspiration behind it, click the “information” button.

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Download the Smithsonian Treasures album

 


During February 2020, the Smithsonian Institute – the world’s largest museum complex, with more than 154 million items – made 2.8 million images from its collection freely available into the public domain.

This project is not an official partnership or collaboration with the Smithsonian, but uses some of its public domain collection of images as artistic inspiration for an online sound exhibition.

Smithsonian Treasures features contributions from the following artists:

Adam Hulbert, Adrian Williams (Things Being Various), Alan Bleay, Andy Billington, Andy Lyon, Audio Obscura, Baying Ridges, Ben Van De Water, Bev Boyd, Borys Kossakowski, Brent Tomchik, Cara Kelly, Cities and Memory, Dan Gusset, Daniel Olson, Daryn Brown, David Webb, Emmy Tither, Eva Quirentia Månsson, Fernando Cerqueira, Glenn Sogge, Heiko Jay, Ian Haygreen, Jeff Dungfelder, Jeff Holland/Multicast, Joe Pino, John Wiggins, Jukka-Pekka Piimies, Karhide, Keira Simmons, Keisuke Oki, Kenneth Lyons, Lina Chang, Marie-Cécile Reber, Mark Taylor, Martin Juenke, Michael Lilley, Michelle Breslin, Mike Tupling, Nick St. George, Odette Johnson, Ollie Campbell, Paul Collins, Philip Smith, Ricardo Paraíso Silvestre, Richard Gadd, Richard Watts, Robin Bale, Rosie Julin, Shaun Malone, Simon Woods, Stephanie Merchak, Stormy, Thomas Haighton, Tilla Martin, Tom Thompson (Primitive Acoustics) and Ursula Bravo.