Public Trust Archival Display
Semester: Spring 2025
Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork
Faculty Advisor: Monique Scott and Sylvia Houghteling
Field Site: Public Trust
Field Supervisor: Aaron Levy
Praxis Poster:
HART_MAYACARLINO_Revised
Further Context:
This semester I interned at Public Trust, a small arts non-profit on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. While they’ve been around since 2002, they’ve recently rebranded from the Slought Foundation and moved away from curating exhibits and installations to focusing more on one-off events and other interactive programming. They’re dedicated to engaging with the community and have an integrative approach and commitment to health, education, and ecology, which guide their programs.
As I mentioned, Public Trust no longer does temporary exhibitions, however, I was able to help them develop a couple different permanent displays for the space. During my first few weeks, a project by a former intern was wrapping up, and I assisted in hanging three large prints on the wall in the front room. It has been really neat to see how a few minor changes made to the space every week add up to big differences in the end. Aaron Levy, my supervisor, has been consistently upgrading the recording and projecting technology, and the tech booth has gone through a transformation since I’ve been there.
I was tasked with creating a series of archival displays of past programs. I did extensive research through the organization’s archived website, which is open and available to the public online, and designed 44 poster spreads that will soon be hung on the wall in the public forum. It was challenging to keep the designs consistent, as titles, pictures, and information available about dates and times varied between events.
InDesign to create the designs, which I taught to myself over the course of the semester. I had to figure out how to install the special fonts from the previous poster template, relink images, how to create guides to be consistent with my layout, how to place a gradient, and then how to manipulate the colors so they matched the image and also looked good. There is a notorious learning curve for Adobe programs, and InDesign was not any easier to learn how to use, especially for such a specific project like the one I was working on, however, if I hadn’t spent so much time getting things wrong, then I wouldn’t be so confident with the program now.
I am sure the final display will enrich the experiences of visitors to the space. As the audience attends present and future programs, they can learn about the history of knowledge that has been shared at Public Trust.