Description

The Project:
The Las Cruces Museum of Art is a small organization that functions as part of a system of free, public museums in the border city. Las Cruces now seeks to optimize the role of these museum’s in the development of a more vibrant cultural district. To raise its own profile, the museum of art plans a project to digitize its fine arts collection. Museum staff will engage students from local colleges and universities in the project, thus combining collection work and professional training in a setting where both are needed. The museum, however limited in resources and means, has a clear sense of its mission and potential to share collections that represent diverse people’s and complex histories. The project will result in full online access to images of works in the fine arts collection as well as information on the objects. Over the course of the project, college students will gain experience in object handling, photography, research, writing, and digital processes.
 
Rationale for Funding:
The Las Cruces Museum of Art project offers the AAP an opportunity to support an organization that seeks to be increasingly active and effective in a region that is otherwise underserved by cultural resources. The museum moreover has a clear sense of the role and mission of its collections, which represent diverse populations whose identies are bound to this place. The project outline demstrates both eagerness and capacity. The timing of the project is such that scholars are indeed increasingly attentive to regional/border cultural institutions such as this one, and responses to the digital accessibility of the collection should be meaningful. The AAP was pleased to see that the project as proposed includes a professional training component, and that this component grows out of existing relationships with regional colleges and universities. While the collection is not one that appears to include a significant number of great objects, it’s overall composition is meaningful in itself, creating an aggregate of historic art making in the area. We are eager to support a cultural organization that seeks to demonstrate how its collection can convey cultural richness and complexities at a moment of divisive contestation, in a region that deserves our attention and support.