Session: Engaging Emergent Technologies to Reach New Audiences

Monday, April 7

9:15 - 10:30 AM

Location: Ithaca Downtown Conference Center

About: 

Museums leveraging technology to enhance human connections. Nick Martinez will discuss development of pop-up exhibition "Video Games: The Great Connector” at The Harlem Gallery of Science (HGS) inspiring Black and Latinx youth to explore career opportunities in the global digital gaming industry. Brianna Hernández will share how Ma’s House has woven Bloomberg Connects into their recent “Reclaiming Death” exhibition enhance visitor experiences and engage new audiences. Heather Arnet will describe recent collaborations at The Heckscher Museum with digital artist Han Qin celebrating the local immigrant community and partnering with middle school students from Girls Inc. to develop a Soundwalk.

Presenters:

Heather Arnet, CEO and Executive Director, The Heckscher Museum of Art

Heather Arnet is the CEO & Executive Director of The Heckscher Museum of Art. Prior to joining the Museum, Arnet served for 18 years as the CEO of Women and Girls Foundation, a community-based social justice organization dedicated to advancing gender equity. There, she established award-winning youth and adult programs and collaborated with programing teams at the Frick Pittsburgh, the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, the Carnegie Museums, and the Andy Warhol Museum. Arnet has a B.A. in Literary & Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University, a Master of Liberal Arts in Museum Studies from Harvard University Extension School was Co-Chair of the Council for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum and Chair of the Ms. Foundation for Women.

Nick Martinez, Vice President of Education and Engagement, The Museum of the City of New York

Nick Martinez is an educator, producer, podcaster, and activist, from New York City with over a decade of experience working at the intersections of museum education, youth, and workforce development, mentoring, and science. His passion is to engage and support BIPOC to pursue interests and careers in science and develop strategies for the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in traditionally non-inclusive spaces. He began his museum career as an undergraduate intern at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in the Museum Education and Employment Program, designing and leading tours of museum halls for visiting school and camp groups. After graduation, he returned to AMNH as an internship supervisor, helping to supervise the new cohort of college interns, and was later hired to teach genetics, human evolution, and neuroscience in the Hall of Human Origins Teaching Lab, first as a Lab Facilitator and then in a full-time role as the Coordinator of the Lab. He is currently the Vice President for Education and Engagement at the Museum of the City of New York.

Brianna L. Hernández, Director of Curation, Ma's House

Brianna L. Hernández is a Chicana artist, curator, and death doula guided by socially-engaged practices. In the studio, she creates multi-media installations focused on end-of-life care, grief, and mourning rituals based on lived experience, cultural research, and collaborations with peers including death education workshops. Hernández proudly serves as director of curation and board secretary of Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation in Southampton, NY and as assistant curator at the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, NY. Additionally, she is the board treasurer at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, and is a committee member for the Gente Chicana/SOYmos Chicanos Arts Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. She was selected for Hyperallergic's 2023-2024 Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators and published three articles, one in the form of an online exhibition of her work on the intersections of art and death.