“Life’s Little Dramas” wins North Carolina Museums Council awards

The North Carolina Museums Council honored the exhibition Life’s Little Dramas: Puppets, Proxies and Spirits with two 2016 Gold Awards of Excellence at their annual conference in Winston-Salem on March 21. The exhibition explored the history of puppetry and featured a complete Edwardian-era “Punch and Judy” troupe; Indonesian wayang kulit shadow puppets; marionettes from India, Sri Lanka, and the Czech Republic; and a working replica of a MARS rover robot.

The exhibition was lauded for its design, educational value, and professional practices. NC State’s Gregg Museum of Art & Design curated and organized Life’s Little Dramas, which showed in the D. H. Hill Library Gallery through February while the Gregg’s new building is under construction.

The exhibition’s gallery guide also drew a top award for publication design, creativity, and content. Molly Renda, NCSU Libraries Exhibits Program Librarian, produced the guide, which is profusely illustrated with photographs of the puppets and contains two essays about the exhibit. Renda and Mary Hauser, Registrar and Associate Director at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design, accepted the awards at a ceremony.