From Conference to Conference... to Conferencia! - Part 2

Love Purple, Live Gold? Just temporarily!... I replaced "garnet" with "purple" for a couple of days about two weeks ago, when I went to Baton Rouge, LA to present at the 40th Conference on Social Theory, Politics & the Arts. This was my first Arts Administration conference, so it was a totally new experience for me. It was also my first time visiting Louisiana, which also made it all more exciting. 

With the theme "Our Countries, Our Cultures: Policies, Practices, Perspectives," the 2012 STP&A conference was held at the Louisiana State University's Cook Hotel and Conference Center from October 18-20. My presentation was entitled "Embracing Diversity from Within: Hispanic/Latinos and their Roles in Florida Art Museums" and it was meant to stimulate reflection on the need of promoting diversity in the workplace. During this presentation, I shared the results of a survey of Florida art museums addressing the involvement of Hispanic/Latinos as paid and unpaid staff members. My study uses this specific ethnic group, which is very predominant and rapidly growing in the state of Florida, but I actually intended it as an invitation for museum professionals to consider the importance of having a diverse staff that actually reflects the audience their institutions serve, in order to be able to better satisfy the needs of their local communities and stay relevant as organizations. My survey was inspired by a similar, but more comprehensive study conducted in the 90's, mentioned by Martha Gutiérrez-Steinkamp in her chapter from the book "Latinos in Museums: A Heritage Reclaimed."

I presented on Friday 19th, as part of a session called "Cultural Diversity and the Value of 'Otherness'" with a diverse group of presenters attending from Canada, Australia and South Africa. It was a great experience. The entire conference was, since I was able to attend very interesting sessions and meet a variety of professionals coming from all kinds of places in the U.S. and abroad.

As a bonus, I got to visit New Orleans! See above a picture of Bourbon Street in the historic French Quarter (courtesy of Mairelys - Thanks!), and a Japan Fest 2012 celebration outside the New Orleans Museum of Art below!

What next? See Part 3 coming soon...