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Museum of History, Anthropology, and Art of the University of Puerto Rico - Andrea Mercado-Cruz, Week 1

 

Week #1 - Internship Blog

Museum of History, Anthropology, and Art of the University of Puerto Rico

by Andrea Mercado-Cruz (YAP 2024)

This was my first week working at the Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte (Museo UPRRP) in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico! So far, it has been a fantastic experience, allowing me to engage in various activities at the museum and see the behind-the-scenes of museum operations.

To begin with, I had the opportunity to research different artworks in the museum's exhibit, "24 años de donaciones al museo." On Monday, my lovely supervisor, Lisa, gave me a tour and explained the history behind some of the pieces, enhancing my knowledge of Puerto Rican history and culture. During the tour, she suggested I focus on four specific works ranging from paintings and wood prints to posters and artifacts. These four works will be the focus of the short paper I'm writing about the artistic representation of Puerto Rican nationalism and colonialism in the 20th century. The rest of the week, I continued to work on my outline for the paper and completed my first rough draft to submit next week. 

On Tuesday, I began digitizing guest contributions from the interactive table 'Flor Borinqueña' (Aug-Dec 2023), part of an exhibit the museum hosted last year. Guests were asked to answer different prompts and sketch their responses onto small pieces of paper, which were then displayed on a gallery wall for guests to view on their way out. The picture below shows me scanning and uploading the drawings guests made for this interactive display. These digitized contributions will be stored in the museum's digital archives and featured on their website to commemorate the exhibit.  


On Wednesday, I also began assisting museum staff in sorting through a massive donation gifted by Marimar Benítez. My job involved documenting details of books, catalogs, and invitations from the 1960s to the early 2000s. I managed to process about 140 items, but there are hundreds more. The picture below shows me sorting through piles of books and documenting them, a list that will be given to the donor and used for cataloging purposes by the museum. 


Lastly, on Friday afternoon, I had the chance to shadow a museum tour for university students attending as part of their "How to view images and artifacts" class. One part of the tour that stood out to me was the use of an “interactive cart,” which Lisa used during the tour to keep the students engaged. Each student was given an item on the cart and told to find it in the painting “El velorio” by Francisco Oller, and explain its use. I then completed an observation rubric, noting group dynamics and the topics discussed.

This was an exciting first week, and I can't wait for the next one!

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