Reports of the Museums and Research Institutes 



39 



the Persian Image: Photographs of Iran, i8jo— 1930 received an 

 Honorable Mention from the American Association of Muse- 

 ums' Museum Publications Design Competition and a 

 Certificate of Merit from the Art Directors Club of Metro- 

 politan Washington. 



Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage 



Richard Kurin, Director 



The Center's job is one of studying, encouraging, and pro- 

 moting cultural democracy. We seek to understand how 

 various and diverse communities see the world culturally. 

 We appreciate how those ways of knowing, doing, and ex- 

 pressing have significance, meaning, and value to real people 

 living contemporary lives. And we respect the fact that var- 

 ied forms of knowledge, skill, and artistry may sometime 

 have something to contribute to the lives of fellow citizens 

 of the nation and the world. We have learned that our mis- 

 sion is best achieved when we work closely and collabora- 

 tively in partnership with the people and communities we 

 seek to represent. 



In keeping with this approach, we are pleased to have 

 recently concluded our series of Smithsonian Folkways 

 recordings on Indonesian musics. This 20— volume set serves 

 as a benchmark effort to document that island nation's musi- 

 cal heritage. Funded by the Ford Foundation over the last 

 decade, dozens of Indonesian archivists, technicians, and stu- 

 dents were trained in an extensive collaboration with the 

 Indonesian Musicological Society. Publication of the series, 

 with notes in regional languages, their use in educational in- 

 stitutions, and popular air play have provided millions of 

 Indonesians access to their own traditions and a building 

 block for their cultural future. Work with other communi- 

 ties, local institutions, and artists led to other important 

 Folkways releases such as Bamboo on the Mountains: Kmhmu 

 Highlanders of Southeast Asia and the U.S., which is a com- 

 plilation drawn from 1 5 years of field research that extended 

 from California garden apartments to mountain villages in 

 Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. A portion of the royalties from 

 sales will be donated to cultural preservation organizations 

 in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. And to mark the passage 

 from one millennium to the next (at least in the calendars of 

 some of the world's population), Smithsonian Folkways reis- 

 sued a number of recordings of music for children by Suni 

 Paz, Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, and Richard Dyer-Bennet. 

 The work of Folkways has also been recognized by the indus- 

 try with a Grammy nomination as well as a nomination 

 by the Association for Independent Music (AFIM) for Ella 

 Jenkins and a Union of Friends Pulling Together. Several Smith- 

 sonian Folkways Recordings were nominated by AFIM, and 

 others received awards from Crossroads Music Magazine, a 

 radio broadcasters' periodical. 



Issues of cultural democracy were at the fore of the featured 

 programs at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. "Washington, 

 D.C.: It's Our Home" showed the vibrancy of local communi- 



ties in the shadow of national institutions. The program was 

 developed and produced in collaboration with the D.C. Com- 

 mission on the Arts and Humanities. Highlights included 

 the range of faith traditions represented: Christian, Jewish, 

 Muslim, Buddhist, and African spiritual. Brightly colored 

 murals painted by children from the D.C. public schools 

 served as a gateway into the D.C. area. The "pick-up" basket- 

 ball court was filled all day, and the D.C. music tent featured 

 social music of all kinds. Community gardening was pre- 

 sented, as were the experiences of African-American, Italian, 

 Bosnian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Panamanian, Jamaican, Sal- 

 vadoran, Ghanaian, and Senegalese cooks. The porch of a 

 D.C. row house was used as a narrative stage where discus- 

 sions were held about social justice, playground legends, 

 community organizations, and migrants to the city. The D.C. 

 Cafe featured jazz, blues, and poetry slams, and environmen- 

 tal issues along the Anacostia and Potomac rivers were 

 discussed at the boathouse of the Seafarers' Yacht Club. 

 Through this program, more Washington, D.C, residents 

 discovered the Festival and more young people came to per- 

 form and visit than in previous years. 



The El Rio program demonstrated the tenacity of regional 

 culture at the border of Mexico and the United States. The 

 relationship between culture and environment was explored 

 by focusing on three areas of cultural life that span several 

 geographical and cultural regions in the basin: how tradi- 

 tional knowledge contributes to managing land and water 

 resources; how is a community's cultural identity nurtured 

 by its environment; and how local knowledge and cultural 

 practices contribute to sustainable development by provid- 

 ing the basis for successful economic enterprises. Case 

 studies exemplified local approaches to living in and with 

 the environment such as the presentation of ranching skills. 

 Related to the land was another case study that featured 

 desert plants as a resource for artisans concerned with pass- 

 ing on craft traditions as well as protecting the environment. 

 Artisans demonstrated how they use river cane for weaving 

 chair seats and for making pinatas. In the area of cultural 

 identity, Cochiti Pueblo and the Hispano community of 

 Bernalillo, New Mexico, highlighted the interrelationships 

 between land, faith, and water with traditional music and 

 matachin music and dance that the Tarahumara have brought 

 from the mountains to Ciudad Juarez, complemented with 

 conjunto and norteno music. Sustainable development fea- 

 tured Tierra Wools, a hand-spinning and weaving enterprise 

 located in northern New Mexico. Other case studies featured 

 maquiladora (factory) workers from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, 

 and building arts featuring house building, brick-making, 

 and adobe and stone artisans. The program was produced in 

 collaboration with the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initia- 

 tives with support from el Consejo Nacional para la Cultura 

 y las Artes, el Consejo para la Cultura de Nuevo Leon, and 

 Coordinacion de Museos Comunitarios de Chihuahua. 



The program on Tibetan refugees provided a cultural in- 

 gathering of a diaspora community facing issues of continuity 

 and survival. "Tibetan Culture Beyond the Land of Snows" 

 offered a particularly vivid example of cultural survival. The 

 establishment of cultural institutions that would revitalize 



