Hello!
My name is Martha Samaniego Calderón and I am the CVAD Galleries Onstead Fellow for this school year (2021-2022).
I am currently during my fifth week into the Fellowship where I have been working with Stefanie Dlugosz-Acton, the director of the CVAD Galleries, to make my learning objectives achievable. I really want to put theory into practice and experience what is involved in a museum within the University setting. I want to learn about the process of the different projects planned and how to troubleshoot when unpredictable situations happen. Right now, we are working with our current exhibition Florielgium with artist Matthew Ritchie. This exhibition is in constant evolution as it is a 4-part multilayered project that has been giving (and will continue to give) space for students from all majors, staff, faculty and community to interact.
This week, I am in the process of designing a "pedagogical tool" that will be available at the gallery in next two weeks for the public to use as they interact with the 36 GAN-created paintings by Matthew Ritchie. I've been using most of my time researching his work and revising theory from last semester around Museum Education. I am really excited and nervous to try something like this because I have never done it. This year , we are all still working around COVID-19 and while this is challenging, I like to think that it is giving us an opportunity to be creative and keep cultivating modified/new learning experiences.
Here are some examples of what I've been thinking so far:
Thanks for being the first post, Martha! I loooooove the questions you've come up with for the Ritchie exhibition. They are very thought-provoking questions and they made me think about Ritchie's work in new (and more exciting!) ways! I think my favorite questions are on the first card, the ones about silence. Reading them really makes me want to talk about the answers with someone else! Thanks Martha!
ReplyDeleteMartha, the CVAD Galleries are lucky to have you to translate materials to be bilingual! We just talked with leadership at the Amon Carter today about how they are attempting to remove any kind of hierarchy between English and Spanish by having everything available in both languages and by intentionally framing tours by asking, "who would enjoy a tour in Spanish?" as opposed to "who needs a tour in Spanish?" Like many other cultural institutions, their philosophy is that universal design benefits everyone and I think this can be applied to having bilingual materials available to visitors.
ReplyDeleteI hear you about being nervous about trying new pedagogical tools out - please let me know if you'd ever want to get together to practice! Happy to get together for that :) Looking forward to hearing more about your work with the CVAD Galleries.
Martha, the work you're doing sounds fascinating, and like a great learning experience! I like the way your pedagogical tools encourage engagement and active thinking. How successful did you find them to be with the exhibition? I'm also curious how you considered the galleries audience when designing them (if you did) - would you be able to share about that?
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful that you've been able to do much needed translation. Having grown up in San Antonio, I'm very used to plaques being presented in both English and Spanish and was surprised when I first visited a museum that did not do this. It's such an easy accessibility tool that I'm always surprised isn't done more.
I hope your semester with the CVAD Galleries has gone well and I look forward to hearing more about it in the spring!