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Every year Museum of the Everglades collaborates with our local school – one of the last two K-12 public schools on a single campus in the state of Florida – to create an exhibit that celebrates a specific aspect of this unique community. Students submit artwork, photos, videos, stories, interviews and more to help us share a part of the character and history of the area with visitors from around the world. A contest with cash prizes is held with a variety of categories open to currently enrolled students of all ages.
This year we have challenged them to share stories of the Everglades area they might have heard growing up that might stretch the truth or push the boundaries of belief. This includes myths, legends, tall tales and ghost stories, but also legendary acts or accomplishments by colorful characters from the region’s past – including ancestors and family members. Our goal is to broaden the understanding of our community and its unique culture by sharing its distinctive folklore through creative, artistic, and literary expressions composed by our local students.
The exhibit will be augmented with historic information and established traditional stories that provide context for the creative responses the students have submitted.
Venture backstage into the golden age of Hollywood in this exhibition that explores the photography of Bob Willoughby. Widely recognized as a pioneer of photography in the 20th century, Willoughby was the first outside photographer invited by studios to take photos on film sets. Take a nostalgic look at some of the most renowned actors and actresses on the sets that made them famous: Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, and more.
A Program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, and The National Endowment for the Arts.
Reflections is more than an art exhibition; it’s a gathering of stories, a celebration of identity, and a mirror for the soul of our community. Presented by the Immokalee Center for Arts & Culture, this exhibition embodies their mission to cultivate creativity, amplify local voices, and create inclusive spaces for artistic expression in Immokalee. They are a community-rooted nonprofit organization dedicated to making the arts accessible, meaningful, and transformative, particularly for those who have been historically underrepresented in cultural spaces. Through Reflections, we invite artists of all ages and backgrounds to explore how personal experiences, cultural memory, and community histories shape the way we see ourselves and each other. This space honors those who came before us, uplifts those creating today, and opens the door for those still to come.
What do Neapolitans make for dinner? Reservations! Dining out has been a local tradition since 1888, when construction crews building the Naples Hotel ate outdoors in what The Naples Company called “the largest dining room in Florida.” Over the decades the Naples food scene has been made complete by dive bars, family-friendly eateries, and purveyors of haute cuisine—which one was your favorite? This local’s only summer treat will fill your plate with delicious memories of beloved area restaurants.
As wildfires rage across national forests turned to tinderboxes — their historic stewards driven from the land or forbidden to tend it — while our waterways waver between historic droughts and catastrophic floods, it just may be time to stop fighting to control the earth and work to heal it. It stands to reason that if we wish to understand what the world we live in is telling us, we should seek the counsel of those who already speak its language.
This new exhibit, created in part through a collaborative effort with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, seeks to re-enforce the relevance and underscore the importance of recent initiatives by organizations, institutions, and even governments — from the Federal level on down — to integrate the knowledge and experience of indigenous cultures into policies and decision-making.
When pioneer settlers began to colonize South Florida in the late 1800s, the most successful of their lot were those who not only befriended but also listened to and learned from the people who had called the Everglades their home for centuries.
Sharing the Path explores both the past influence and the future possibilities of implementing traditional indigenous knowledge in everything from land management to decision-making. The exhibit uses the words and voices of indigenous people from South Florida and beyond to communicate the shared belief that all living things are connected and how that understanding can aid us in navigating challenges in everything from global diplomacy to our most personal relationships: with each other, ourselves, and the earth itself.
As human beings, we have repeatedly found Marco Island a paradise. This exhibit explores how we get here, how we move about, and how transportation defines us as Marco Islanders. Hop on your boat, plane, train, car, or bicycle and cruise on into this exhibit.
Aztec Dancers is a photo exhibition by local photographer Lisette Morales, celebrating Danza Azteca Guadalupana as practiced in Southwest Florida. Documenting a year and a half of devotion, the series centers the Navarro family’s twenty four year commitment to this sacred, syncretic tradition, presented each year from Día de los Muertos through Three Kings Day. Morales’s images honor the spiritual power, cultural resilience, and collective joy of Indigenous and migrant communities sustaining this vibrant ceremonial practice across generations and geographies.
Visit the Naples Cottage at the Collier Museum at Government Center for our 5th Annual holiday display, A Cottage Christmas. Explore the Twentieth Century Christmas traditions that introduced new technologies and materials to Christmas celebrations, transforming the holiday from a home-based Victorian celebration of a few days to a modernistic, multi-week season of shopping, events, and celebrations. The cottage is decorated in mid-century holiday style, and vintage decorations are on display throughout the house.