From the very beginning, the mission of the California
Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA) has been to provide
high quality, affordable exhibitions to small museums.
CERA began in 1988, when a group of museums in
Northern California (originally called the Rural Museums
Consortium), collaborated to bring three exhibitions from
the Smithsonian Institution to five rural California museums.
The California Council for the Humanities funded this
first program cycle and by 1992, the project evolved into
a statewide coalition of small and mid-sized institutions.
In 1994, CERA became an official program of the Council
and a full-time Museum Program Coordinator was hired two
years later.
CERA continued its growth
and adopted a new mission statement in 1999. Other long-range
planning included developing goals and objective, as
well as the creation of clarified participation criteria
and a committee to evaluate applications for new participants.
In March
2002, CERA received a generous grant from the James
Irvine Foundation to establish CERA as an independent
non-profit organization to better serve California's
museum community and its citizens. CERA was granted
its non-profit status and completed five-year Strategic,
Marketing and Business Plans in the fall of 2002.
Since 1988,
39 exhibitions have toured through CERA to over 100
museums and cultural organizations. Since 1998, more
that 850,000 people participated in CERA exhibitions
and programs. Numerous museums, both small and large,
in California and out-of-state, have worked collaboratively
through CERA to enrich their community's cultural programming.
Exhibitions
Toured by CERA
Family Folklore
What Style Is It?
Official Images: New Deal Photography
Audubon's Birds and Animals
Seeds of Change
Textile Diaries
Between Two Worlds: People of the Border
Earth Angels
Faces of Destiny: Photographs from the 1898 Indian
Congress in Omaha
Gum San: Land of the Golden Mountain
Jose Guadalupe Posada: Mexican Printmaker
No Laughing Matter: Political Cartoonists on the Environment
Photography and the Old West
Produce for Victory: Posters from the American Homefront,
1941-1945
Woven Vessels
Overland: The California Emigrant Trail of 1841-1847
Gold Fever! Untold Stories of the California Gold
Rush
Sunset Magazine: A Century of Western Living 1898-1998
Votes for Women: Unfinished Business
Awakening from the California Dream: An Environmental
History
Audubon of the West: Andrew Jackson Grayson
Salt Dreams: Reflections from a Downstream West
The Whole World's Watching: Social and Political Movements
from the 1960s and 1970s
Ansel Adams: Inspiration and Influence
Discovery, Devastation, Survival: California Indians
and the Gold Rush
Moving Waters: The Colorado River and the West
Key Ingredients: America By Food
At Work: The Art of California Labor
Precious
Cargo: California Indian Cradle Baskets and Childbirth
Traditions
State of
Emergency: Disaster Response in California
California's
Labor History
What's Going
On? - California and the Vietnam Era
From the
Byways to the Highways: Rondal Partridge Photographs
California 1936 - 1969
Lewis and
Clark Revisited: A Trail in Modern Day
Sing Me
Your Story, Dance Me Home: Art & Poetry From Native
California
Aurelius
O. Carpenter: Photographer of the Mendocino Fronier
Bear In
Mind: The Story of the California Grizzly
Multiply
by Six Million: Portraits and Stories of Holocaust
Survivors
