Museums Archives - Fulbright Student Program Blog

One Connection at a Time: The Wisdom of the Universe in my Fulbright Experience

January 22, 2020

By Gloriana Amador Agüero, 2018 Fulbright Foreign Student, Costa Rica

At the Minnesota Historical Society. 2019.

For my first internship in the United States, I spent two months in green, friendly, Minneapolis, Minnesota. I’m a Fulbrighter from Costa Rica, studying for an MS in Museums and Digital Culture (MDC) at Pratt Institute in New York City. Why would I want to go to the Midwest? The answer, it turns out, is slightly complicated.

Before Fulbright, I met the love of my life in Costa Rica: Alberto, who had moved from Costa Rica to the Twin Cities years before. During my first visits to Minnesota, we spent time visiting the lakes, parks, and great museums in the area, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). MIA is an audience-centered institution that uses innovative digital strategies and includes 90,000 pieces from around the world. During my Spring semester at Pratt, one of my assignments for my Museum Digital Strategy class was to interview a museum professional. I decided to reach out to none other than Douglas Hegley, Chief Digital Officer at MIA! During the phone interview, Douglas and I talked about our motivations, and I was amazed by his fascinating journey into the museum world and the interactive media programs and digital initiatives at MIA. The MDC Blog published the interview on Medium.

3rd Avenue Entrance Façade of the Minneapolis Institute of Art building. 2016.

Douglas Hegley presenting with Susan Wamsley, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, at the Digital Assets Management (DAM) 2019 DAMs and Cultural Heritage – A Professional Dialog, Photo: Gloriana Amador.

Following our conversation, Douglas presented at the Digital Asset Management (DAM) Conference in New York, where I was able to meet him in person. Over a cup of coffee, I discovered not just how outstanding he is as a museum professional, but how kind and generous, too. He shared his ideas and advice to develop my career. After this meeting, I thought, “This is the kind of professional I want to become.” Douglas’ kindness and helpfulness inspired me to also help others through professionalism, kindness, and generosity.

Shortly after our meeting, I received an e-mail with the subject line: “A connection.” To my surprise, Douglas connected me with Frances Lloyd-Baynes, Head of Collections Information Management at MIA, and a leading expert in the field. We connected and talked about MIA’s ongoing projects, and before I knew it, I found myself with an internship at an American art museum!

Frances Lloyd-Baynes, Head of Collections Information Management, and Gloriana Amador at the Media and Technology Division. 2019.

At MIA, I worked on information management in museums, using a database. The database is used to collect important information related to the artwork, artists, and exhibitions located at the museum, which can be shared with the public. One way museums can share this information is by connecting the internal database with their website, through an Application Programming Interface (API), which helps to deliver content to the Web. I researched and designed the integration of the museum’s collections database and the website through the MIA’s Application Programming Interface (API).

In order to accomplish this, I first trained in The Museum System (TMS), which is MIA’s internal database. Second, I studied the content of four exhibitions, their didactic panels, and related artwork. Third, our team created a model of links and relations within TMS, almost like building a search engine. And finally, with input from MIA’s Software Developer, we designed a road map of links and sequences to find an easy way to pull data for each exhibition in TMS. These types of projects are especially important in the museum world, as thanks to the integration of databases and websites through the API, people can interact with information and learn more about art.

This hands-on experience complemented my coursework and expanded my professional network in the art world. My experience illustrates some of the Fulbright Program’s core values: contributing to my field’s development, and encouraging me to build global networks and friendships. MIA, and the Midwest, opened its doors to me.

Installation views of the exhibition “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists.” Curated by Jill Ahlberg Yohe. Organized by Minneapolis Institute of Art. Presented by Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.

“The Wisdom of the Universe,” a wonderful painting by Christi Belcourt, exhibited in “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists” at the MIA, reminds me of the importance of those connections. My journey started with a love story that allowed me to meet generous professionals along the way. The wisdom of the universe brought me to the Midwest with my boyfriend, then connected me to Douglas, and finally to Frances.

My advice for future Fulbrighters is to be open to expanding your connections with professionalism, kindness, and generosity. Don’t forget those relationships that have meant so much in your career. I am living one of Fulbright’s core values, “one connection at a time.”

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Foreign Fulbright

Museums Shaping Cultural Understanding: A Fulbrighter’s Perspective

August 26, 2019

By Angeliki Tsiotinou, Fulbright Foreign Student from Greece

In May I visited the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration in New York City. Dr George Tselos, the museum’s Supervisory Archivist, greatly endorsed my research project throughout the course of my fieldwork at the museum

When Fulbright brought me to the University of Illinois, Chicago in November 2017, I arrived ready to investigate the museum representations of North and Southeast European immigration to the United States with a particular– but not exclusive – focus on Greek immigration. Chicago was the ideal base for such research. The city is home to hundreds of distinct ethnic and cultural neighborhoods established during waves of migration to the city from all corners of the world that began as early as the mid-1800s.

As I pursued my research, I soon found myself reflecting on other, no less important topics, relating to the contemporary identity and role of museums. Museums today play a balancing act: answering community members’ diverse needs and backgrounds while continuously adapting to our dynamic, globalized and constantly changing society.

How can museums create a communal space in which to welcome this rich mix of sometimes-divergent perspectives and experiences, I wondered? And how can the study of museums itself help us question established notions of identity and develop innovative museum practices that address our emerging interethnic, inter-racial reality, globally characterized by increasingly complex patterns of human mobility, integration, and acculturation?

While I am still trying to find answers to these questions, my experience with Fulbright helped me realize the power that cultural practitioners have to shape people’s views of the world in a positive way. As cultural institutions, museums have a distinct role to play in forming critical reflection and debate around ongoing societal shifts and in achieving reconciliation among diverse communities.

With my academic background in material culture and cultural representation theories, my research explored how objects associated with the immigrant past have been contextualized and interpreted in U.S. museum displays, as well as how these displays help articulate our shared interpretations of the immigrant past. My fieldwork took me to a range of ethnic, cultural and immigration museums across the United States, located in cities like Chicago, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Tarpon Springs, and New York City. The visits were complemented by interviews with museum staff and members of the represented community, particularly the Greek American one.

While in Chicago, I also volunteered for a non-profit organization called Chicago Cultural Alliance, a consortium of 40 Chicago-area cultural heritage museums and centers. Through this experience, I was lucky to meet inspiring people advocating passionately for a more inclusive, culturally diverse Chicago by bringing together museums and enhancing dialogue among their communities.

In Tarpon Springs, Florida, I met with Dr. Tina Bucuvalas who curated the ‘Greek Community of Tarpon Springs’ exhibit at the Tarpon Springs Heritage Museum. Tina’s long experience as a Curator of Arts & Historical Resources for the City of Tarpon Springs proved to be a valuable resource for me.

My Fulbright experience, also my first experience in the U.S., profoundly shaped my personal and my professional development in a variety of ways.

Researching a variety of museums and their day-to-day operations helped me see the tremendous resources that each institution devotes to achieve relevance and resonance with their community members. Speaking with community members of varying origins, ages and backgrounds, I realized that despite the differing ways in which they expressed their ethnic or cultural affiliation, they all shared a yearning for maintaining or regaining a connection to the culture of their ancestors.

My Fulbright experience empowered me. It made me realize that my voice matters and that my work is impactful.

Most importantly, it made me realize that in times of change, we – cultural practitioners and public humanities scholars – are more responsible than ever before to foster public dialogue on democracy, independence, and cultural diversity. By emphasizing what brings us all together rather than what pulls us apart, we can help shape a better future for the world that we all share.

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Enrichment Foreign Fulbright Fulbright-Millennial Trains Project

Change Participants

August 8, 2016

Yanoa Carrasco, 2015-2017, Peru, in front of one of the Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen “Shuttlecocks” sculptures at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri

Greetings from the 2016 Millennial Trains Project (MTP). You may be wondering what MTP is. Well, let me explain. It’s a train journey across the United States for a diverse group of young leaders and innovators. Thanks to the Fulbright Program, I am having a great trip experience and making new friends: millennials from different parts of the United States and two other Fulbright Foreign Students, one from Germany and the other from Malaysia.

I’m currently doing a master’s degree in museum studies at New York University, so when I learned about the MTP, I decided to apply to conduct research about community engagement in museums. Through my project, I want to create an awareness of the importance of collecting, preserving and interpreting local and/or regional history. One of the best ways to do this is to involve a local community and create engaging activities that will allow them to discover and interpret the world around them. Institutions like museums and cultural centers are currently evolving into spaces of knowledge and personal reflection; places where communities can go and discuss specific topics while creating their own narratives about them.

The goal of my MTP journey is to explore different participatory and engaging experiences offered by museums in order to spread the word about those activities and inspire others to create similar programs all around the world.

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