Colby Museum show asks how U.S. became an empire as country marks 250 years

Adam Schrader, Urgent Matter, July 18, 2026

The Colby College Museum of Art has opened an exhibition asking how the United States became an empire, five years after a history course on the subject inspired its curator.

The show, "Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas," opened July 11 in Waterville, Maine, and runs through June 6, 2027.

It holds about 50 works by more than 40 contemporary artists connected to islands that came under U.S. control after the Treaty of Paris in 1898, two of which — Guam and Puerto Rico — remain U.S. territories.

The show arrived in the year of the country's 250th anniversary, which curator Jessamine Batario said was not the plan.