Smithsonian To Participate in Fiesta DC 2008
The Smithsonian Latino Center (SLC) will work with Fiesta D.C. to deliver high-caliber,
visually engaging, and culturally relevant programming for Latino Festival
o Washington to take place on Sunday, September 28, 2008.
The nature of this
SLC program with Fiesta D.C. will be visual programming in the form of a series
of object- and text-based slide shows (using in part images from Latino collections
from the Smithsonian Institution) that will be played on loop to festival audiences
resting inside a tent provided by Fiesta D.C.
These slide shows will
be akin to moving bill boards that utilize photographs and text to inspire
curiosity about, and provide exposure to images, ideas, and facts about Latino
history and culture from a geographically broad and culturally inclusive perspective,
including the legacy of Hispanic and other European settlers and colonizers;
Afro-descendent communities in the Americas; indigenous and non-Latino identified
native peoples; East Asians; Jewish Latinos; and their mixed descendants who
make up the totality of diverse peoples who populate the Americas.
In addition
to developing these slide shows, the Smithsonian Latino Center will provide
educational and informational materials from across the Smithsonian Institution
to encourage visitors to Fiesta DC to visit and utilize the free resources
offered by the Smithsonian to the American public. SLC will also participate
in a brief speaking program to introduce the Fiesta DC audience to the theme
of the slide shows and to encourage them to explore the museums of the Smithsonian,
and the public programs and exhibitions offered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
Furthermore, the Smithsonian Latino Center will use Fiesta D.C. as an additional
venue to screen movies from its fall film series “The Puerto Rican films
of DIVEDCO: Melodrama, Civics, and Modernity.”
These Spanish-language
films were produced in Puerto Rico in the 1950s and 60s by a new wave of artists
who created stories and images about solidarity, democracy, education, and
tolerance for rural audiences whose lives, families, and livelihoods were being
transformed during those pivotal decades of political, social, and economic
change.