Encounter Culture

Word nerds and punctuation perfectionists rejoice! Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski ends the season in grand, grammatically correct fashion with Dr. Maggie DePond, exhibition copy editor for the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs . Maggie also lends her talents to El Palacio magazine , casting a last, learned glance over every issue before it goes live. The pair geek out over the i...

Walk into any library, and the world is revealed, from tall tales and vital truths to oral histories and picture books. It's no wonder that these magical repositories of imagination and knowledge also contain some of the coolest, most subversive, and most innovative people on the planet: librarians. Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski goes directly to the source. She chats with Eli Guinnee,...

For a podcast that boasts so many fascinating guests, State Historic Preservation Officer Jeff Pappas, PhD stands out as a favorite. Beyond the paperwork and rule-making that naturally accompany any federal job, his day-to-day at the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division is more interesting than one might expect. Charlotte Jusinski chats with Jeff about what historic preservation means in a st...

Is there a food more universally loved than chocolate? No other ingredient lends itself to savory, sweet, and even alcoholic applications, tempting folks in everything from molten cakes to moles to Martinis. Chocolate—or, more specifically, cacao—has been processed and consumed in Mesoamerica for millennia. In Chocolate: The Exhibition , which opens on June 17 at the New Mexico Museum of Natural H...

Is it possible for an arts organization to respect the hallowed neighborhood in which it resides and be future-focused? Could it serve as a cultural home for locals while attracting worldwide attention? Can its campus reverberate with the buzz of performances, exhibitions, and events yet provide space for quiet contemplation? If the arts organization in question is The National Hispanic Cultural C...

As humans, we learn best when we don't realize that learning is taking place. We're naturally drawn to hands-on displays and curious about reenactments. We can recall tiny details from those experiences more enthusiastically than the rote memorization of our school days. Heather Reed is convinced that more people love history than let on precisely because they don't realize they love history. She'...

Conversations worth having never come easy. Perhaps that's why previous attempts to present a complete history of the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation, an inhospitable million-acre concentration camp into which thousands of Navajo and Mescalero Apache people were forcibly relocated by the US government in the 1860s, fell short. The primarily white cohort of state employees who initially created t...

Wherever there are people, there is art. Sadly, wherever there is art, there are few creatives who can earn a living solely from their work. Nowhere are those facts more apparent than in New Mexico, one of the most rural states in the Union, yet one laden with artistic riches. Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski explores the benefits of and mechanics for funding New Mexico's robust artistic...

Charlotte Jusinski is back for Season 2 of Encounter Culture! In Season 1, we took you on a behind the scenes tour of the museums of Santa Fe. Now we're venturing out to discover the hidden, perhaps darker, histories of New Mexico and learning how fresh eyes translate those histories to the museum world. We're looking at how art affects New Mexico's bottom line budget-wise, and giving you a previe...

In a fitting close to Encounter Culture's inaugural season, host Charlotte Jusinski returns to where it began. The New Mexico Museum of Art's exhibition Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Elaine Horwitch celebrates the woman responsible for launching this region's contemporary art movement into the stratosphere. Joining Charlotte to dish on the legendary gallery owner's influence...

Traditional clothing can inform, inspire, and connect. Dressing with Purpose: Belonging and Resistance in Scandinavia, which opens at the Museum of International Folk Art in December, examines three Scandinavian folk dress traditions—Swedish folkdräkt, Norwegian bunad, and Sámi gákti. Host Charlotte Jusinski explores the history, social implications, and present-day interpretations of these iconic...

From technological innovations to societal attitudes, a lot has changed in the last twenty years. As evolutionary processes go, the gallery-wide refresh of the celebrated permanent exhibition Here, Now and Always (HNA) , which opened at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in 1997, offers exciting opportunities for greater collaboration with the Southwest's Native peoples and vibrant new storytelli...

If Santa Fe held an election to decide the city's official meme, "I rebuilt the Palace of the Governors at my own expense" would surely garner a hefty number of votes. Various governors––Spanish, Mexican, and American––over the last 400 years have uttered versions of that phrase, highlighting their individual efforts to remodel and repair the oldest public building in Santa Fe. Governor grandstand...

Glass isn't typically the first material that folks associate with Indigenous artwork. And yet, the medium lends itself well to unique cultural interpretations, combining fundamental elements of earth, air, and fire with generational artistry. Native artists have been drawn to glassblowing since the 1970s, utilizing it to reinterpret traditional forms and tell thoroughly modern stories. Host Charl...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, who gets to craft that narrative? How does their version compare to others, and what does it tell us about the subject? An era? Ourselves? Host Charlotte Jusinski and her guest Hannah Abelbeck, archivist at the New Mexico History Museum's Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, explore all the angles, prompted by the discovery of 19th century archival images...

Masks have become ubiquitous in the last 18 months. In a pinch, they can be constructed out of inexpensive, repurposed materials, while their use (or lack thereof) can provide commentary on how the wearer feels about politics, responsibility, and design––a lot like art. Host Charlotte Jusinski introduces listeners to #mask: Creative Responses to the Global Pandemic at the Museum of International F...

Breath. Prior to 2020, most people didn't give the complex, involuntary act of breathing much thought. Times have changed. So, too, has the lens through which both audiences and artists view Breath Taking , a new exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski, the editor of El Palacio magazine, welcomes Kate Ware, her co-host for this inaugural episode and curat...

For centuries, the culture of New Mexico has offered residents and visitors a lush, complex texture of styles, designs and lifestyles. In recent history, that has included surviving a global pandemic. So who are we now? What aspects of self do we take with us as we move forward, and what do we leave behind? Take a look inside the museums and historic sites of New Mexico—this time, without leaving...