Skip to main content

National Hispanic Cultural Center - Gianna Ramirez, Week 1 and 2

 As my internship experience at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC), in Albuquerque, New Mexico has officially commenced, I have spent these first weeks diving straight into project research! During my Senior year of High School, I was fortunate enough to be an intern with the NHCC Visual Arts team, working in their museum as part of a class. The NHCC holds a special place in my heart, so I am excited to be working with the History and Literary Arts Department during this internship!  

My new workspace! The HLA offices are in a beautiful adobe building.

Due to scheduling conflicts, my internship will technically run over the course of 5 weeks. On July 1st and the first day of my internship, I met my Supervisor, Jesus "Cheche" Silveyra, the History and Literary Arts Program Manager. He explained the main project I will be working on which is creating content for an Ideum board for the Torreón building on the NHCC campus. The Ideum board is a digital interactive used by a lot of museums for different spaces. In the case of the Torreon building, there is a Fresco painting on the inner dome of building. The Ideum board will be specifically for this space and guest interaction with the fresco titled "Mundos de Mestizaje."

A portion of the fresco "Mundos de Mestizaje" created by artist Frederico Vigil

On this first day, I was able to visit the Ideum offices, which are based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Ideum team creates all their boards by hand, doing everything from the hardwiring of the screens, to the digital design and visual function. This was a really intriguing experience, as I got get inspiration/ideas for what the NHCC board could be like, but also got to learn more about how these Ideum boards are created.

When I returned back to the NHCC, I got a short tour of the NHCC archives, which house various mediums of information and documents. One of which was a set of books recording the familial crests of families within New Mexico. 

This is my "Ramirez" familial crest page

The rest of this first week was spent familiarizing myself with the Torreón and the content and iconography of the fresco itself. I began reading through education materials on the Torreon and doing research on mestizaje as a whole. My evolvement in this project includes providing insight and doing research on what or who is missing within the larger conversation of what "mestizaje" and its history is, how we can use the Ideum board best, and what is interesting me as a young person. 

This first week definitely included me diving right into the projects and happenings of the NHCC. While being super busy, it was an amazing first week!

Week 2: July 8th - July 12th:

For my second week at the NHCC, I continued my research while also diving deeper into the important narratives (and problematic ones) within the topic of mestizaje. After reading the booklet that is in the Torreon, which gives descriptions on each of the images included in the fresco, I began making notes on the things that I noticed; problematic descriptions, inequities of representation, and things that are missing but still important to mestizaje.

In the midst of this research, I also read bits of two different books. The HLA department of the NHCC wants to do a mini exhibit on the Aztec Calendar Stone, which has thus allowed me to learn more about it!  It's not only super interesting, but something I had seen all my life and not known much about.

Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend

The Aztec Calendar Stone by Khristaan D. Villela and Mary Ellen Miller

As the week continued, I created various documents, keeping track of my opinions and ideas for the Ideum board and the content more generally. I have also had various meetings with my supervisor, Cheche, where we have brainstormed and discussed the complexities and issues that come with the topic of mestizaje. 

With this week coming to an end, I am excited for all that's to come with this project! While being a big task to tackle, it has allowed me the opportunity to be thoughtful in my research and learn lots of new information! Yay to my first 2 weeks back at the NHCC! I hope everyone is enjoying the start to their internship experiences!

- Gianna Ramirez


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Museum of Science & Industry - Thalia Estrada, Week 4

Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago Internship Thalia Estrada     Hey everyone! :)  It is hard to believe that four weeks have easily gone by. I got to build wonderful relationships with the staff in the MSI educational team and I also got to know the overall museum—with its many exhibits—  on a deeper level. This is what I did on my final week: This is how the museum looks from the outside. It is absolutely stunning.           To begin with the week, I got to the museum early because the office does team huddles on Monday mornings. In these huddles, the educational team speaks with the vice president and education and chief learning and community officer, Dr. Jessica Chavez. A calendar is projected onto TV where the team then discusses their latest projects and keeps the education department up to date with any events that are coming up in the week. This is also a great time for the team to ask for assistance, or make everyone a...
Post a Comment
Read more

National Museum of Mexican Art - Citlalli Alaniz, Week 1

 Week 1 (July 1-July 7)  Hi everyone! My internship started last week and I am an educational intern at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, helping with the ImaginARTE Summer Camp which is for children ages 7-12. Since summer camp started in late June, I quickly jumped in ready to help and get to know all the children. My first week consisted of 3 summer camp days and my story time session in that weekend.  Summer camp quickly became accustomed to seeing me and receiving help distributing supplies, helping them, and supervising them during recess time. The summer camp's theme is based on making individual mini-museums to showcase the different aspects and components of museums. Each week focuses on a different component, my first week's theme was all about making sculptures and creating condition reports for the children's museum. The week concluded with the children making their sculptures and them being added to a sculpture garden that was previously made. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Arte Americas - Mateo De Anda, Week 2/3

Last week I had a slow start with lots of research and planning. Towards the end of last week we in the programs department received a brief course on managing a classroom space, including setting up the environment, creating classroom norms and expectations and how to present to kids while maintaining their attention and interest. We also covered, more specifically, how that is accomplished reading a book. This week I got to put theory and planning to practice. Saturday, Arte Americas hosted another Bilingual Story-time event. While the reading went on, I observed the suggestions that we had learned in the training being applied effectively. Besides the usual set up process of the reading and activity spaces, this week there was also a projected video between spots that I helped with. I believe after what I learned this week I'm more than ready to host my own Storytime.  Sunday, I returned to my research. I spent most of the day contacting other organizations in the area and devel...
Post a Comment
Read more