From Conference to Conference... to Conferencia! - Part 1

A lot going on recently! Where have I been? Well, from conference to conference... to conferencia! This seems to be the year of conferences for me, and it has been exciting and exhausting at the same time. This second half of the year started for me with the annual Florida Association of Museums conference, which happened to be in town this time. It was great to have been able to participate and present again this year. Even though I wasn't able to attend the conference everyday, I participated in some very interesting and informative sessions, meetings and social gathering activities. It was great to connect again with people I hadn't seen in a while, and also meet many new colleagues who I am now looking forward to seeing again next year. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, the theme of the conference this year was "Changing Perceptions." The panel session I pulled together, which I talked about also in my previous post, got very positive responses from attendees who seemed to have appreciated the information that we shared with them, coming up with some interesting questions for the presenters. Our session was held at the beautiful ALoft Tallahassee Downtown hotel (see picture above) in a conference room similar to the one in the picture below. However, and more importantly, the session panelists were just wonderful! They are just a pleasure to work with so I truly consider myself very fortunate to have been able to get them all on board! 

Since the session was about Hispanic audiences, I wanted to make sure that we had a diverse group of presenters and I was happy to be able to accomplish that task. FSU professor Pat Villeneuve (my major professor and advisor) opened the session sharing insights about the Mixing It Up: Building an Identity art exhibition, which she recently curated together with ASU professor Mary Erickson and a diverse curatorial team at the Tempe Center for the Arts, near the city of Phoenix, AZ. Pat shared details about the curatorial model behind the exhibition, and I then introduced attendees to the evaluation and research of it that I'm currently conducting for my doctoral dissertation. Next, bilingual interpretation specialist, Carlos Plaza, provided all participants with information regarding The Bilingual Exhibits Research Initiative (BERI) that he has been part of recently, and shared valuable guidelines for museum professionals interested in developing bilingual exhibitions (see one of Carlos' recent articles on the topic here). The next presenter was Jorge Zamanillo, Vice President for Expansion Projects at HistoryMiami. Jorge shared insights about some of the most recent exhibitions and programs at HistoryMiami, including the exhibition entitled The Guayabera: A Shirt's Story (see the online version of it here) and stressed their current initiatives to reach Hispanic populations in South Florida. FSU professor Felipe Korzenny presented last, sharing his experiences in the field of Hispanic Marketing Communication, and offering examples on how to connect with Hispanic consumers.

After what I've shared above, I think there is no need for me to say again how pleased I am with the way our session turned out. It's really not much of a surprise since such a wonderful combination of people in one panel couldn't deliver anything less than great! I'd like to thank them all again for participating and I truly look forward to finding ways to collaborate again in the future!

So, what came after this? Stay tuned for Part 2!