Providence based artist May Babcock (b. 1986) is an eco-centric artist that creates paper works and sculptural forms from natural materials she sources from local environments. In her most recent body of work, on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in November of 2026, she creates a collection of “new ecologies” constructed from natural sites around southern New England.

Artist Susan Heideman (b. 1950) has explored bio-morphic shapes of the ocean’s “in-between entities” for nearly twenty years in her Proteanna series and beyond. The real and imagined floating, aqueous shapes of her work evoke the forms of invertebrate creatures that often remind us of primordial beings living in the depths of the sea.

Bristol County: Incarcerated features items related to life in the Ash Street Jail, both for its residents and its employees, and those related to Bristol County’s history of incarceration.

Explore stories of independence, struggle, and citizenship in the region during the late colonial and early Republican period (1760-1830)

Reflect on Ahab’s obsession in Moby-Dick, and ties to American violence and public discourse

Consider the rise of portrait photography in New Bedford from 1839 to 1900

Come participate in a hands-on giant kite-making workshop with multi-media artist Magda Leon and the Guatemalan Center of New England.

Examine Bradford’s artwork alongside contemporary art on climate change and Eastern Arctic lifeways