Digital Commons Network^™

The Destruction Of Unesco World Heritage Sites Aleppo And Palmyra In Syria Due To Civil War: Accessioning And Cataloging The Satellite And Drone Imagery Into A Museum Collection, Colette P. Militello

Master's Projects and Capstones

This Museum Studies capstone will discuss the civil war inside Syria, and the destruction of UNESCO World Heritage Sites Aleppo and Palmyra. This paper will examine the historical importance of these sites, and the drone and satellite imagery data used to confirm the destruction. This paper will argue that for full preservation of these cultural heritage sites that this imagery data should be accessioned into a museum collection with the use of professionally-trained registrars. This paper will explore this idea further by arguing that this imagery data collected by companies and governments should be handed over with full copyright to …

Community, Preservation, And Street Art: A Proposal For San Francisco’S Mission District, Marissa Nadeau

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Latinx community is an integral part of San Francisco’s rich history. From Mexican missions in the late 1700s to an influx of immigrants from various Latin countries starting in the early 1900s, the Mission District (‘the Mission’) of San Francisco has served as a hub for this mix of residents, fondly called “Raza,” emphasizing the people of a community rather than the country they have come from. Wars and issues dealt in their homelands were close to the hearts of the entirety of the Latinx population of the Mission, and their voices and opinions were heard through a type …

Employing Natural History Collections In The Aid Of Conservation: Streamlining An Approach To Model Species Distributions En Masse For The Preservation Of Biodiversity, Alice Fornari

Master's Projects and Capstones

Using species distribution models (SDMs) in Natural History Collections (NHCs) can influence how humans implement conservation changes in flora and fauna communities and ecosystems. Through the use of legacy data (old NHCs and their associated locality/collection information), data correction (background data or pseudo absences added to presence-only data), and the SDM software, Maxent (and its associated geographic information systems or GIS projected models), it has been shown that it is feasible to create a low budget protocol/setup to project the past, present and future of species population changes. This has been done in the past few decades as more collections …

Asian America And Empathy: Understanding The Chinese American Experience Through The Art Of Flo Oy Wong, Brienne Wong

Master's Projects and Capstones

This capstone examines how the work of Chinese American artist Flo Oy Wong could be an impetus for dialogue for creating empathy for the Asian American experience. The capstone briefly discusses Chinese American history as the Chinese are one of the earliest immigrant groups to the United States and Asian American art history which demonstrates the role of art for Asian Americans. It also describes the importance of empathy in society and how some museums today are trying to apply empathy to serve their communities. Within this framework, I discuss artist Flo Oy Wong whose ability to tell stories about …

Homeward Bound: The Struggle Senior Dogs Face To Find Their Fur-Ever Homes, An Exhibition Proposal, Natalia Chavez

Master's Projects and Capstones

For this capstone project, I created a proposal for an exhibition centering around animal rights that focuses on the rights of senior dogs in United States animal shelters. Homeward Bound: The Struggle Senior Dogs Face to Find Their Fur-Ever Homes intends to raise awareness of the difficulties senior dogs face in being adopted from animal shelters, while promoting individuals to be active and engaged participants in actions to support the needs of senior shelter dogs.

Senior dogs have the highest probability of euthanasia in shelters.[1] Shelters and rescue organizations provide much needed assistance to senior dogs, supporting their …

Renouncing The Universal Museum’S Imperial Past: A Call To Return The Rosetta Stone Through Collaborative Museology, Anna Volante

Master's Projects and Capstones

In colonial times, Western empires used orientalism to justify and perpetuate colonialism and imperialism over countries that they believed inferior to their own. These imperial powers plundered cultural heritage artifacts from the nations they oppressed and took these objects back to their national museums to be displayed as trophies of subjugation. The ownership of cultural heritage remains a point of contention throughout the field of museum studies. Despite cries for repatriation, these artifacts continue to be housed in universal museums today. One of the most well-known cases is that of the Rosetta Stone, stripped from the city of Rashid, Egypt …

Battlefield Mementos Care Of And Restitution Of Japanese 'Good Luck Flags' And Cultural Heritage Objects From War In Museum Collections, Andrew Armstrong

Master's Projects and Capstones

In World War II one of the most common objects found on the battlefield in the Pacific Theater was that of the Japanese Yosegaki Hinomaru or “Good Luck Flag” These objects were some of the most looted items from the war and soon found themselves in the possession of veterans of World War II and their families. In the past few decades as these veterans pass, increasing numbers of veterans and their families attempt to return the flags to Japan, or museums in the United States, believing they are the most suited to care for such objects. However this presents …