I was first introduced to the Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifacts Collection (AAAC) in 2018 as a sophomore in college when I took a course on Andean art and aesthetics with Dr. Michelle Wibbelsman. Comprised of art including paintings, dolls, ceramics, etched gourds, woven pieces, musical instruments, and other household items from Indigenous communities, the collection was paired with literature and served as an important knowledge source in the classroom. 













At the end of the semester, I continued to work with the collection, focusing specifically on the ceramic vessels and effigy figures produced by women in the Canelos Quechua community. Despite the fragility of the art, my goal was to increase accessibility and visitor interactions with the pieces to better reflect the knowledge-exchanging function of the ceramics and the multisensory approach to learning held by the Canelos Quechua people. To do this, I designed and created a digital, interactive resource that allowed users to create personalized versions of some of the ceramic vessels housed in the collection. The resource contained shapes, colors, and patterns that were culturally accurate, thereby helping facilitate the same knowledge transmission as the physical pieces and remaining true to the original Indigenous artists. When users interacted with the program I designed, they formed deeper connections with the fragile ceramic pieces compared to simply viewing them through the glass vitrines in our collection. In addition to facilitating interactions with the ceramics, the resource presented textual information that described the vessel making process, videos of Canelos Quechua women making pieces in Ecuador, and audio clips of the songs they sing while they work. I then tested the efficacy of the resource by collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. Finally, the program was paired with the physical collection and made available to the public, and has since been used by a global audience. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 








Working on this project, my eyes were opened to the ways that colonial ideology remains present in museums and museum-like settings, and the importance of curating cultural collections to better serve the communities they reflect. I presented my work at the 2021 Denman Undergraduate Research Forum at Ohio State, placing second in the category of The Human Experience. I also wrote and defended an undergraduate thesis on my experiences with the collection, thereby adding a research distinction to my Bachelor of Arts degree. 

To this day, Dr. Wibbelsman remains a close friend and mentor, and I enjoy following the growth of the collection since my departure.