The UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures will spotlight a student-created digital exhibition project and accompanying poster exhibition in collaboration with the university’s “Fundamentals of Museum Studies” class. The poster exhibition will be on display from April 13 to May 31, 2023. Each poster will include a QR code, driving viewers to more comprehensive digital content.
As part of a 2022-23 Digital Humanities Fellows program, the Fall 2022 museum studies course included 35 undergraduate and two graduate students majoring in art, history, anthropology, and other majors divided into groups and charged with choosing a topic, researching it, and creating an online exhibit. Melissa Maschke, a UTSA MFA student, designed the posters.
“The museum studies class explores areas where museums intersect and interact with the public and discusses how we present our history and stories to a wide audience,” said Veronica Rodriguez, the ITC’s interim head curator. “This project allowed the students to use the ITC exhibit floor and UTSA resources as a launch pad for new ideas, research, and content, organized into digital exhibits for the public.”
Several of the student groups used the permanent exhibits at the ITC as inspiration for their projects. Their online exhibitions focus on Japanese immigrant stories, African American quilting traditions, and canning foods in the Czech kitchen during the Great Depression. The other groups used resources from the UTSA Art Collection detailing cross-border art, and UTSA Special Collections, with its resources on civil rights; World War II-era internment camps in South Texas, the flora and art of San Antonio Parks, and Texas fashion, pattern books, and textiles in the 19th century, to create their project.
“This project has helped us delve further into digital humanities,” said Dr. Edit Tóth, professor of instruction at the UTSA College of Liberal and Fine Arts and instructor to the Fundamentals of Museum Studies class. “We continue to explore our capabilities within the exhibition space and in virtual space, as our students have created more in-depth content, rich with pictures and stories, accessible to anyone with an internet connection. This sort of access to cultural resources is what the collaboration with the Institute of Texan Cultures is all about.”
Dr. Tóth also contributed to the experience, using the institute’s Asian Festival as inspiration for a project on Chinese theater.
Projects and student names:
Japanese Innovators in South Texas – Timeline
Katarina Bosquez
Valentine Hayden
Dakota Ward
Footprints Left in Time
Isabelle Perez
Ailish Nosker
Ethan Zorola
Czech Farming in the Great Depression
Kaja Belardi
Yadira Silva
Camryn Kubicek
African American Quilts
Krystal Vinson
Morgan Gaugler
Maureen Walker
Japanese Rice Cultivation
Emily Malloy
Sailor Stanley
Lessy Torres
Civil Rights in Texas
Abby West
Evan Dupre
Lillyann Rendon
San Antonio Parks: Art and Flora
Giselle Martinez
Gabi Castillo
Briana Hayes
Kassidy Lugo
Mexican Indigenous Textile and Flora
Magdalena Guajardo Salinas (MFA)
The Chinese Theater’s Journey to the West
Edit Tóth