CTRLxALTxHERITAGE: Behind the Scenes with the Folklife Storytellers Workshop

During the Smithsonian Folklife Festival season, interns are in every single place: aiding accessibility efforts, coordinating occasions, escorting individuals, and guaranteeing no a part of the Festival slips by way of cracks. In May, I turned an intern with the Folklife Storytellers Workshop program, a multimedia cohort devoted to inventive documentation and presentation of the Festival.

We name ourselves CTRLxALTxHERITAGE as a play on “Ctrl + Alt + Delete,” the pc keyboard command usually used to restart methods. As a youth cohort beneath the mentorship of multimedia storyteller Annika Young, we’re resetting how individuals strategy cultural preservation and storytelling in an ever-changing digital world—an ideal match for a Festival program titled Youth and the Future of Culture, proper?

Unlike most interns on the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, who concluded their internships on the finish of the summer season, we’re nonetheless deep in our initiatives by way of November. Now that we’ve sorted by way of the footage we shot and interviews we carried out all through the Festival, we’re piecing collectively a feature-length documentary movie, producing a podcast sequence, and writing articles just like the one you’re studying now.

My title is Shauri Thacker, and I’m a inventive author and post-undergraduate intern from rural Utah. Since a lot of what we’ve been doing is behind the scenes, I figured I might put my abilities to make use of and showcase my buddies holding the cameras and pens: Sebastian Barajas, Elise Jeffries, Ella Peters, Abby Scamardella, Joella Shearer, and Nakalaya “Por” Tupsamphan. I hope you take pleasure in getting to know them as a lot as I’ve.

Sebastian Barajas

As shy as he claims to be, California-born Sebastian is aware of practically everybody working within the Center and may all the time be counted on for info and contacts. An artwork historical past graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Sebastian got here into this internship considering it will be like different museum internships he’s had, the place he was given duties to do quietly and independently. He shortly found that the Festival setting was the exact opposite.

“We have been working together, and then we’ve been working with Festival participants and Festival curators, et cetera,” Sebastian instructed me. “Even before the Festival, we’re together and talking to each other all day, which is not something that I’m used to doing in a job but that I like to do. I’m a very social person, so I’m happy that’s what our job is: collaborating and talking to each other.”

The Festival excited Sebastian as a result of, very similar to museums and galleries, it permits individuals the area to current their artwork. “I learned a lot more about people’s cultures and the things that they’re doing, and I was even able to see my own culture, Mexican American culture, reflected in the Festival,” he stated. “It’s a good reminder that people are interested in you, in your culture, in your practices, and that [culture] is something that is always going to be around.”

Sebastian additionally famous that, due to this internship, his aspirations for the long run have modified. “The Storytellers Workshop is a great steppingstone in thinking about what I want to do now,” he stated. “I now know because of the program that I want to find other ways to continue this work [of cultural vitality and documentation].”

Elise Jeffries

Elise is a Penn State University movie scholar from Virginia with a eager eye for excellent pictures and a ardour for being behind a digital camera. Within the Center’s digital archives, she can discover any photograph, video, or audio clip an individual desires. This internship has helped her develop exponentially and given her loads of well-rounded expertise, particularly in teamwork.

“Our cohort, it’s very big on collaboration,” Elise stated. “I’m normally working by myself, so having a group of people, especially to work on a documentary together and have all our voices heard, and we’re all working together, was really awesome. Going forward, I definitely think I’ll be a better collaborator.”

The Festival itself was eye-opening. As a videographer, she moved all through the National Mall, recording moments from the day’s first demonstrations to its last live performance. “[The Festival] reinforced [culture’s] importance to me,” Elise expressed. “Being able to go to a festival and seeing that culture is everywhere—it definitely reinforced how important it is, and how tradition, it’s carried down, and it’s still here, even with young people.”

Being a younger, curious intern is a power, I gathered from Elise. The internship, as effectively because the Festival expertise, has given her helpful data for her upcoming internship in Los Angeles. Her recommendation to future interns: “Remember that you are here to learn. It’s a learning process, and there are things you’re not going to know. Everyone’s doing new things; we’re trying different medias. I’m not really a writer, but I took a shot at writing. I tried. It’s okay to ask questions and make mistakes because ultimately you are here to learn.”

Ella Peters

An anthropology and authorities scholar at Georgetown University who moved from Washington state, Ella is observant and element oriented. If there’s an angle we haven’t thought of, she’s almost certainly to level it out.

Ella instructed me that CTRLxALTxHERITAGE has been academic on all fronts. “I’m doing different kinds of writing than I’ve ever done before,” she stated. “I’m learning about how a podcast is produced. I’m learning about how a documentary is produced, how an organization like this does their social media output. I think the greatest resource that I’ve had here is my fellow interns, who are just so skilled at what they do and who have such a wide range of skills. It’s been really fun to just watch my peers work.”

Alongside Sebastian, Ella interviewed numerous Festival individuals, which was a spotlight for her since every particular person she spoke with bolstered the dynamic nature of tradition. “Getting to see the Folklife Festival—it’s a really unique way to express cultural practices,” she instructed me. “One of the things that museums sometimes can’t convey is what culture in action looks like, what you see when somebody is making a wrought-iron gate or somebody is performing a song.”

Working at the Center has been pivotal to Ella’s profession path, and she or he hopes future interns additionally get life-changing experiences. To them, she says, “Be curious. Exercise curiosity. I think that’s something that the Center will really allow you to do and encourage you to do. You may find that you’re interested in something that you didn’t even know about before starting.”

Abby Scamardella

While Idaho-born Abby shares the identical school and areas of research as Ella, her ardour lies in movie. When she’s within the director’s chair, she is aware of precisely what she desires from every shot and find out how to get it from her crew. She expressed that, after her interview, being a part of the CTRLxALTxHERITAGE cohort felt inevitable.

“No other job that I applied for fit exactly this intersection of culture and film and media and all of these things that I’m so interested in,” Abby stated. “It was a full-circle moment where I knew this was coming, and I knew this was supposed to happen.”

Abby believes that the internship has taught her to worth what’s irreplaceable about individuals: “Everyone brings a very vital element to [CTRLxALTxHERITAGE], and [we] mesh together so well, so what I would take away from this is appreciating and being more aware of everyone’s specific talents and how they can mesh with yours, and how in the end it all comes together in a way that you couldn’t imagine, and that if one person was different, it wouldn’t exist.”

Abby admitted to me that she by no means noticed herself primarily directing our documentary’s manufacturing. Unlike different internships, this one has allowed her to realize expertise within the function she desires and inspired her to talk up. To future interns, she advises, “If you come in and you know you want to do something, say, ‘I want to do this. I’m good at it. Here’s why I should do it,’ and start stepping into these roles.”

Joella Shearer

Carleton College scholar Joella sees herself as a historian, dancer, and filmmaker who will sometime discover herself leaving her Ohio house to edit movies on the West Coast. Like Abby, when she discovered this internship, she noticed it as an ideal match and alternative.

“This was the perfect amalgamation of all my interests and something that I have a very deep interest in doing professionally,” Joella stated. “I’m so grateful to be able to be here and to have this opportunity that feels like it was perfectly designed for what I’ve been doing and what I want to continue to do.”

Joella has the big job of being the documentary’s main editor, which suggests sorting by way of, deciding on, and arranging video clips. “I did the math the other day, and I think we have fifty-seven interviews with participants and curators and visitors to the Festival,” she stated. “With visitors, I think it’s probably around sixty. Being able to work with that much material has been really exciting and also a very big element of growth for me because I’m having to be organized in ways that I haven’t had to before.”

For Joella, CTRLxALTxHERITAGE has not solely been a strategy to elevate youth voices—her personal included—but in addition an unforgettable likelihood to see how youth are persevering with cultural practices whereas additionally shaping them.

“It’s been really wonderful to see how these young people are adding their own flare and their own twists while still preserving the original thing,” she instructed me. “[Culture] isn’t something that they’re going to lock away and keep still and stagnant and not ever change. It’s something that is alive.”

Por Tupsamphan

From day one of the Festival, we discovered that handing Por a digital camera meant she would vanish for the day with further batteries and SD playing cards in her pockets. She’s an avid videographer and editor with a knack for unconventional pictures and cuts. A contemporary graduate of UC Riverside from Thailand, Por hopes to make use of all the abilities and insights she’s gotten from the internship to make her manner into movie.

Por instructed me that she views CTRLxALTxHERITAGE as being akin to professionals, and dealing with us has been a very completely different expertise to working along with her professors or classmates, who are sometimes overly aggressive. “I see the program as a production team,” she stated. “Everyone [has] their job and their role, and everyone shine[s] in their role. It’s us that make this cohort. We come together and click really nicely.”

While the internship gave her an opportunity to showcase and construct her abilities, attending to expertise the Festival additionally gave Por a brand new perspective on American tradition. Seeing numerous points first hand as a substitute of from a textbook was extremely particular. “I know that America is built with different communities, and they come together to build this country, and seeing [the] Festival in a theme of youth of culture—this is [the] America that I think all of us want,” she stated.

“I can see passion behind everyone [in the cohort],” Por expressed to me. “I know that everyone [will] come out with passion, too. We come in together as a group, and we are doing this because we are the future. We know that we are a group that can bring hope.”

Me (Shauri Thacker)

During my interview for this internship, I instructed Annika that I felt caught. Since graduating a yr earlier from Southern Utah University with a bachelor’s diploma in English, I hadn’t discovered an modifying job like I anticipated, and I needed new experiences to push me like my inventive writing and different courses had. She gave me the problem I wanted in spades.

Originally, I anticipated making use of my ability set primarily to work on our journal and weblog content material. I figured my writing abilities have been inapplicable to the audio and visible storytelling wanted for the documentary and the podcast. Annika and the remainder of my cohort shortly made me notice how versatile my abilities are and helped me domesticate new ones.

Like my buddies, being a part of CTRLxALTxHERITAGE has bolstered how invaluable tradition is and the way deeply I need to see it treasured, lived, and shared. Capturing the Festival—the way it got here collectively, the traditions and abilities the individuals showcased, the experiences guests took house as core recollections—was a privilege that reshaped my profession ambitions.

To future interns: acknowledge who you might be and the abilities you’ve whereas embracing who you possibly can develop into and what you possibly can be taught. Annika instructed us on the primary day that internships are what you make of them, and she or he was proper.

Shauri Thacker is a Folklife Storytellers Workshop intern specializing in writing and modifying.

Illustrator Anh Thu Pham-Vu is a former program intern for the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.