Author: Liv Raddatz

Keyla Benitez ’24

Bringing Fleisher’s Past to the Future: Digitizing their Artistic Archives!

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: Fleisher Art Memorial

Field Supervisors: Bailey Dodds & Catherine Lee

Praxis Poster:

NEW_KeylaBenitez_FinalPraxis Poster_rez

 

Further Context:

The Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, located in South Philadelphia, has provided art education and cultural programming accessible to all since 1898. As part of their commitment to accessibility and inclusion, they have initiated a project to digitize their creative archives and bring Flesher’s past to the future. The project’s primary goal is to identify historically significant documents and methods for digitization. I worked with Bryn Mawr’s Archivist and Digital Collections and Metadata Librarian to develop digitization and outreach strategies that are effective and sustainable.

The project’s social justice lens means that the digitized archives will be accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities or background. The project also created a preservation plan for a 116-year-old scrapbook created by Samuel S. Flesher himself. The scrapbook provides unique insight into the founder’s vision for the institution, its early days, and the founder’s life. However, the scrapbook is deteriorating due to its age and delicate nature. I worked to develop a plan to protect and preserve the scrapbook for future generations.

The project serves as a reminder of the vital role that institutions like the Flesher Art Memorial play in promoting community engagement. By digitizing historical documents and making them more accessible and inclusive, Flesher is preserving its history and making it available to a broader audience. This highlights the importance of accessibility and inclusion in safeguarding cultural heritage and fostering creative spaces welcoming to everyone.

In conclusion, an important initiative is for Flesher to digitize its artistic archives and bring Flesher’s past to the future. The project’s commitment to accessibility and inclusion is crucial in preserving cultural heritage and making it available to everyone. The project also demonstrates the Flesher Art Memorial’s ongoing commitment to its mission and the people of
Philadelphia.

Nyla McNeil, BMC ’26

Ancient Artifacts and Contemporary Connections

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: The Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katherine Blanchard

Praxis Poster:

Nyla McNeil PRAXIS Poster - Final

 

Further Context:

Participating in the PRAXIS: Museum Studies course gave me the incredible opportunity to work at the Penn Museum on a rehousing project in the Near East Department. Before beginning the project, I established multiple overarching goals to give me insight into my potential career possibilities and explored my ethical questions about museum work. My time at the Penn Museum satisfied these goals, gave me a stronger sense of purpose in the museum sector, and cemented my profound appreciation for the behind-the-scenes collections management in Museums.

Our rehousing project was relatively simple, but it became a space for constant hands-on learning and complicated my understanding of preservation practices within museum collections. At the Penn Museum, several large shelving units housed artifacts in rows of wooden boxes. Our jobs were to complete an inventory of each box’s artifacts, photograph them based on proper orientation sanctions, re-bag each item, and return it to a more compact plastic bin. This work was seemingly simple but posed several challenges throughout. Photography was particularly challenging as my coworker, Samantha, and I had to learn dynamic practices for two different photo orientations (shot down and shot on).

Moreover, we frequently handled delicate materials, some of which needed to be photographed as a collection of several sherds or broken pieces. This tedious procedure taught me to pay greater attention to detail and to view object photography through the lens of a researcher. For example, when taking a photo, I had to ask myself questions such as: What unique grooves or curvature do I need to capture, or How would this item be oriented upright if it were still fully intact?

Despite the significant takeaways from the project itself, much of my newfound insight came from the questions and conversations brought up with my supervisor and coworker regularly. My supervisor, Katy, was incredibly willing to answer our questions and share her expertise from many years of experience in archaeological excavations and at the Penn Museum. Furthermore, Katy gave my coworker and I uniquely insightful opportunities such as:

  • Letting us sit in on a meeting that discussed a new exhibit’s cultivation (from the ground up).
  • Setting us up with meetings with department faculty that met our interests.
  • Taking us on a private tour at another local Philadelphia Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Throughout the experience, Katy’s openness to questions, her relaying of archaeological insight, and her genuine appreciation for her profession made it memorable and valuable.

Spencer Auerbach, BMC ’24

Representation Matters

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: Bryn Mawr College Special Collections

Field Supervisors: Carrie Robbins & Marianne Weldon

Praxis Poster:

Final_SpencerOPraxis Poster Session

 

Further Context:

For this semester, I worked in the Bryn Mawr Special Collections. Specifically, I worked on creating new cataloging guidelines around artists’ demographic information. This includes such information as race, ethnicity, and gender. Before this semester, there were no consistent guidelines for how to put this information in the collection database. My final product for the semester is in fact a proposal for these new guidelines. I created these guidelines in collaboration with another intern, Graziella. The two of us spent a lot of time considering language. What language should be used to talk about race? Where should this language be used? These are difficult questions that do not have a good answer.

To start the semester off, we began by looking at how other institutions catalogue this data. We collected the information in order to try and understand the industry standard. Once we had finished this process, we began looking inward. This included looking at the efforts around cataloging diversity in the collections. We also did work to understand what was possible with Embarke, the college collection management software. Once this process was done, we could begin work on drafting our recommendations. Our recommendations include suggestions such as where to display the information about an artist’s demographics, how to determine the appropriate language for describing artist demographics, and how to determine an artist’s demographic information. When the recommendations were done, we began testing them on some of the artists in the collection. Based on that, we refined our suggestions.

 

Samantha Jean Kopkowski, BMC ’25

The Power of a Collection: What Bringing Beth Shean To Life Taught Me

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: The Penn Museum

Field Supervisor: Katherine Blanchard

Praxis Poster:

Final_SamanthaKPraxisPoster

 

Further Context:

In the spirit of honesty, I’ll confess that I came into the museum studies praxis seminar by accident. Last fall, I was looking to expand my knowledge of museum studies, and the praxis seminar was the only available class. In a whirlwind of interviews, emails and assists from my faculty advisors, I connected with my field advisor, Katy Blanchard, about an internship in the
Penn Museum’s Near Eastern collections. I went into the experience without much knowledge of near eastern archeological material and a keen desire to observe museum operations from the inside. Ultimately the internship offered me a chance both to learn about the Near East and
explore the inner workings of the Museum as much as I wanted. However, most importantly, the opportunity showed me how much work goes into even the smallest, most easily taken-for-granted aspects of Museum operations, and how even this largely invisible work, can change a museum for the better.

My work at Penn primarily contributed to a single project, the continuing effort to re-inventory, photograph, and rehouse material from the site of Beth Shean in Northern Israel. The Beth Shean material is a cornerstone of the Penn’s Near Eastern collection. As I learned through digital and on-site research, Beth Shean was continuously occupied from the late Neolithic period through the middle ages. Thus, the archeological material I worked with records a progression of visual culture through man’s earliest discoveries, the Egyptian colonial period in Israel, the rise of Judaism, Greek colonization of the eastern Mediterranean, Roman colonization, and the rise of the Byzantine Empire. This makes these objects critical subjects of research, useful educational tools, and beautiful, enlightening features in museum exhibitions.

This, I came to realize, was the importance of my work. The photographs I was taking with my colleague, Nyla Mcneil, opened these valuable objects up to new attention from researchers, curators, and professors. Moreover, through shadowing my field advisor in meetings, doing an informational interview with the brain behind the Penn’s community outreach initiatives, and reading about the museum throughout the semester, I observed a will to revitalize the Penn and reinvent the institution as an asset to the community at large. I realized that my work, though it may seem small, was a crucial element of this. Photographing objects brought them to life and gave the world outside of the Penn’s archives a chance to understand these
pieces of history.

I also learned a lot of useful, practical information about the inner workings of the Penn and museums like it. I will certainly use this newfound knowledge of things like exhibition design, archival techniques, object handling, and industry standards in future positions with material closer to my area of study. However, I’m most proud to take away the knowledge that
every bit of work done in a museum can contribute to the desperately necessary democratization of these institutions. In my future, I hope to apply this principle in every area of museum work I can.

Graziella Pierangeli, BMC ’24

Representation Matters

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: Bryn Mawr College Special Collections

Field Supervisors: Carrie Robbins & Marianne Weldon

Praxis Poster:

Final_REVISEDGraziellaPierangeli Representation Matters (24 36 in)

 

Further Context:

Olivia Harkins-Finn, BMC ‘23

Teacher Institute Intern at the Toledo Museum of Art

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: The Toledo Museum of Art

Field Supervisor: Grace Toth

Praxis Poster:

Final_Olivia H-F Poster

 

Further Context:

For my praxis this semester, I got to work remotely for the Toledo Museum of Art where I interned in person over the summer. My position this semester has been particularly fulfilling because I am helping support the planning of a nation-wide Teacher Institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Institutes like this one are supported by the NEH a lot, but this year is the first time an art museum will be hosting one.

The Teacher Institute at the Toledo Museum of Art is described on their website as follows: “Exploring a work of art’s story, symbolism, and context can shape our perceptions of the world. The Toledo Museum of Art’s week-long summer institute will help K-12 teachers develop skills and teaching strategies to facilitate their students’ investigations into Native American and African American perspectives and contributions to American History through visual culture.” You can read more about the Teacher Institute on their website here.

My specific role has been to primarily create pre and post institute resources for the participating teachers. This includes lesson plans surrounding artists we will focus on during the week of the institute. I have also been working on workshop guides surrounding specific exhibits that will be up at the museum over the summer. Additionally, I helped compile resources for teachers surrounding their stay in Toledo. Teachers have also come to me for help coordinating accommodations and other things for their stay. Overall, I have really enjoyed my internship this semester!

Julie Knoepfler, BMC ’24

Special Collections Research: Locating Delaware Artifacts at External Institutions

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: Bryn Mawr College Special Collections

Field Supervisors: Allison Mills & Carrie Robbins

Praxis Poster:

Final_Julie_KnoepflerPoster_HART420

 

Further Context:

For my Praxis project, the main goal was to learn if any artifacts from the Delaware Tribe, procured by donors whose collections have ended up at BMC Special Collections, are also being held at other institutions. Due to the great imposition this research would have taken on tribe members and the necessity of repatriation happening in as few rounds as possible, it is key that this research was conducted.

The first part of the research involved confirming the names that the Delaware tribe has gone by (or have been called) throughout their history and to also learn where tribe members have lived from about 1800 to 1920. This information was key for me, when looking through museum databases. I created a spreadsheet and listed every name that the tribe went under so that when I searched museums, I wouldn’t miss any results. Locations were also important so that if an object was tagged with one of the relevant states, I’d know to investigate it further or to narrow my searches to certain states.

The second part of my research was looking for the identities of donors. Many of the names on the scans my supervisors provided were only of initials and/or last names. We didn’t know who most of these people were or details about their lives. Therefore, I conducted research through census data, searching for full names and identities. Knowing the donors’ identities would allow me to learn which institutions they were associated with so I would know to search through their museum collections. Ultimately, I learned the identities of up to eight donors (for three, I am making an educated guess, but I was unable to fully confirm their identity) out of approximately 23 unknown donors on the scans.

The last part of my research involved my various trips to the archives of Swarthmore, Haverford, and The Academy of Natural Sciences. While my visits to Swarthmore and Haverford were useful, I found the most information at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Through my visit, I found letters and documents between donors and institutions (or curators), some of which confirmed the move of artifacts to these institutions. I also found letters between donors and archaeologists who purchased items or asked for the recipient’s expertise. Lastly, many of these letters confirmed sites where artifacts were excavated (and who excavated them).

Results: In total I was able to find artifacts at the Ohio History Connection and the Smithsonian that might be of Delaware origin. The next step involves working with the tribe to try and confirm whether these objects are in fact Delaware artifacts.

Hilda Delgado, HC ’23

Curatorial Research at Monument Lab

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: Monument Lab

Field Supervisor: Aubree Penney

Praxis Poster:

Final_HildaDelgado_PosterMonumentLab

 

Further Context:

At Monument Lab I was able to learn a myriad of skills that I think will be very helpful in my future endeavors. My work primarily consisted of conducting curatorial research. I contributed to their curatorial pipeline which facilitates further research of artists for the rest of the Monument Lab team. I also had the opportunity to do research on Contemporary Latinx artists. This was really fun to do because my interest lies in Latinx art, so it was informative as I was able to learn about new artists and delve deeper into artists that I wanted to learn even more about!

It was really interesting to see how a non profit engaged with art, monuments, and history. Through my work with Monument Lab I learned about artists doing work to rethink and reconstruct how we view history and how monuments intersect to achieve this. At the end of my internship with Monument Lab I gave a presentation on a few artists I had found that I thought would make a good fit for Monument Lab projects in the future. This is where I feel like I learned the most about Monument Lab’s mission because I had to select artists whose work aligned with Monument Lab’s work. In my research I found a lot of artists whose work engaged with the public and it revealed to me the importance of community and collaborative work to move towards the larger goal of equity and rethinking monuments.

Eryn Mei Peritz (丰春苹), BMC ’25

Monument Lab

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: Monument Lab

Field Supervisor: Aubree Penney

Praxis Poster:

Final_Eryn_Peritz_MonumentLabPoster (24 × 36 in)

 

Further Context:

 

Please click here to view Eryn’s video presentation.

Eliana Silbert, BMC ‘25

Representation Matters: Religion

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Faculty Advisors: Matthew Feliz &  Monique Scott

Field Site: Bryn Mawr College Special Collections

Field Supervisors: Carrie Robbins and Marianne Weldon

Praxis Poster:

Final_Eliana Silbert Praxis Poster (002)

 

Further Context:

For my praxis internship as part of the Museum Studies Praxis Fieldwork Seminar, I worked with Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections as part of a project called “Representation Matters.” Our goal was to improve how certain identity factors — religion, race, and gender — are represented in TriArte, Special Collections’ online database. Although I was working with two other people, the focus of our project differed as I was concentrating on religious art and artifacts and they were looking at the gender and race of the artists whose work is in TriArte.

I began my project by searching for various religious objects in online databases in a total of thirteen museums across the country. I kept track of what I liked and what I didn’t like, as well as where I felt that the search systems were lacking. I then did the same with TriArte. Using my notes for both sets of digital explorations, I created a list of ideas for how religious objects should be keyworded. I also included some information about what I thought would be useful to include in blurbs for certain objects, as the blurbs were really helpful in teaching me about what I was looking at when I was on the websites of other museums or digital collections.

I was able to start meeting with Marianne Weldon, the Head of Special Collections’ Arts and Artifacts Department, and begin implementing my ideas. As a religion major and museum studies minor, I also had learned a lot of information in my classes that was useful for this. One of the changes I made involved the Buddha statues owned by Bryn Mawr; I updated their keywords so they all used generic terms such as “Buddhism,” “Buddha,” “religion,” and “religious art,” but also added in terms relating to the mudras displayed by each piece. Mudras are hand gestures that appear a lot in Hindu and Buddhist art, and each mudra has its own name and meaning. It wasn’t always as straightforward as simply adding in mudras, however. I wrote a blurb for a piece titled Abraham Casting out Hagar and Ishmael, where I explained the story, as described in Genesis. However, this specific scene is important not only in Judaism and Christianity, but also in Islam. There are some differences, and I wanted to be respectful of that. However, I also had to be wary of any default assumptions I might make about that scene due to my own Jewish background.

The other lasting impact of my project — beyond the updated items in TriArte — was a section on how to keyword that will go in the Data Entry Standards document used by Special Collections. This is general as opposed to focusing on religion, but I used the specific things I updated in TriArte as examples.

I really enjoyed this project. It allowed me to learn about the importance of word choice and digital archiving, and the impact (positive or negative) that can be made from both of those. I had never given much thought to keywording prior to this project, so I really appreciated that it opened my eyes to such an important aspect of the world of museums.