SEARSPORT — In cooperation with the Penobscot Marine Museum's 2016 Postcard Project, The Maine Office of Tourism will showcase eight postcards from 1916, selected from the museum's archives, at the 2016 Governor's Conference on Tourism on March 21 and 22 at Sunday River Resort.

The Maine Office of Tourism chose one postcard from the museum's collection for each of Maine's eight tourism regions: The Maine Beaches, Greater Portland and Casco Bay, the Mid-Coast region, Maine's Lakes and Mountains, the Maine Highlands region, the Kennebec Valley region, the DownEast and Acadia region, and Aroostook County. Each of the hundreds of attendees will receive a pack of postcards at the conference, and posting stations will be set up where the attendees will be encouraged to write and post the cards.

Wish You Were Here: Communicating Maine, Penobscot Marine Museum's 2016 series of exhibitions and community projects explores a hundred years of images which have been used to communicate the unique qualities of Maine to the outside world. With photographic postcards, photography, and contemporary art, this exhibit explores the changes which have taken place in the images which have been used to communicate "Maine".

Community Project: Penobscot Marine Museum is collaborating with the Maine State Library system to distribute postcards with historic images of Maine from the museum's photography collection to libraries across the state for patrons to mail during Library Week, April 10 through 16.

Exhibit: Historic Maine, a Postcard View
This exhibit presents a history of the postcard and takes a closer look at postcards produced by three Maine photographic postcard companies. Postcards produced by Evie Barbour, who photographed the Blue Hill area with a box camera, and the Cunningham Brothers who photographed the area around Washington, Maine combine with images from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company to create a highly personal and intimate portrait of Maine. The exhibit includes oral histories of Mainers talking about the treasured places seen in these postcards, a trailer for a documentary on Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company by Maine filmmaker Sumner McKane, a Model T outfitted with contemporaneous photography equipment, and the museums' gigantic walk-in camera obscura which demonstrates the inside workings of a nineteenth-century camera.

Exhibit: Acadia National Park, a Postcard View
Penobscot Marine Museum joins the Acadia Centennial celebration with an exhibit of fifty years of Acadia National Park in postcards.

Exhibit: Maine's Changing Sense of Place
Maine's unique sense of place has been portrayed over the years by artists such as Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth, and today Maine is known for its vibrant art scene. To understand how images of sense of place can change over the years, guest curator Carl Little, author of Paintings of Maine and Art of the Maine Islands, chose photographs of special places from the Penobscot Marine Museum's collection, and chose artwork by Maine artists which was inspired by these special places. The historic photograph and the contemporary art work will be displayed side by side.

Community Project: Photoplay! Postcards by M.J. Bronstein
Artist M.J. Bronstein has created postcards using historic images from Penobscot Marine Museum's photography collection. These postcards are designed for the museum visitor to be able to draw on them, adding to the historic photo. Each postcard becomes a unique creation for museum visitors to send to their friends.

For more information go to penobscotmarinemuseum.org or call the Visitors Center 207-548-0334 or Administrative Offices at 207-548-2529.