SAR Announces 2017-2018 Anne Ray Interns
The Indian Arts Research Center annually offers two nine-month internships to individuals who are recent college graduates, current graduate students, or junior museum professionals who are committed to furthering their professional museum experience and enhancing their intellectual capacity for contributing to the expanding field and discourse of museum studies. The Indian Arts Research Center is pleased to announce its selections for the 2017-2018 Anne Ray Native Interns:
Brenna Two Bears, Bitter Water clan, was born and raised in the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin. Fascinated by tribal museums, but also disappointed with natural history museums fumbling to include a Native portion to their Western narrative, Two Bears chose specifically to study at Whitman College, focusing most of her work on their colonialist history, and the physical historical memories that go along with that. Her last college project in spring 2017, was a presentation at the college’s undergraduate conference, accompanying an exhibit she prepared on the Maxey Museum’s role in the college’s current efforts to build relationships with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation. While working with the IARC staff, Two Bears expects her hands-on approach to Native history and representation will bring her closer to her life goal, to build a Ho-Chunk Nation tribal museum while uplifting future generations of Native artists along the way.
Samuel Villarreal Catanach, comes from Pojoaque Pueblo and recently received his MS in American Indian Studies – Indigenous Rights and Social Justice at Arizona State University. Prior to graduate school, Villarreal Catanach worked in his community in various capacities related to the preservation of his culture, language and history. His work experience at the Pueblo included systems analysis, grant program managing, historical archiving, and creating the first Pueblo of Pojoaque history and culture website. Of Villarreal Catanach’s many interests, one theme has proven to stand out above the rest – the revitalization of indigenous languages. Working with the collection at IARC and with the help and guidance of a fluent Tewa speaker, Villarreal Catanach expects to facilitate a consistent language component to the class offerings at the Poeh Cultural Center and Museum at Pojoaque Pueblo.
During their tenure, Samuel and Brenna will be dividing their time between collections, registration, education, and academic projects. They will participate in SAR’s colloquium series and work on staff projects, as well as attend a professional conference during their tenure ― September 1, 2017 through May 31, 2018.