Image: Mr. Abhirup Shome (right) with Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage website manager and developer Toby Dodds. They are standing in the archive where recordings of music from around the world are curated.
Anthropology and Classics senior Abhirup Shome has returned from his internship at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. For two months during the summer of 2017, he served as an intern at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The purpose of the center is to "promote greater understanding and sustainability of cultural heritage across the United States." The center produces audio records and documentaries and is in charge of the annual Folklife festival that takes place on the National Mall at the end of June. As an intern, Shome was part of a multi-national team and, at the center, was exposed to how the center manages diverse recordings and serves diverse audiences.
Shome worked as a web production intern and aided in the management of the content on the center's websites. He managed the content of past blog posts to better share cultural heritage with people from around the world and also helped ensure that the content on a recent feature could be shared on social media. Music is big part of the center's efforts to promote a greater understanding of culture and he also helped reorganize music from around the world (provided through UNESCO) on the website, so that it might be shared with a global audience. Other duties included aiding in the creation of galleries of pictures from past cultural festivals, so that visitors to the website center might learn more about cultures from across the world. He also assisted with the Folklife festival for this summer, which explored circuses and featured circus performances from around the world.
Shome notes: "My experiences here have been especially rewarding as someone who has experienced other cultures and my internship has only helped in bolstering my thirst for knowledge. Experiencing other cultures and learning from them only helps one grow as a person and I am honored to have been a part of the center's mission to promote a greater understanding of cultural heritage."
Shome's internship experience was also supported by the Department of Anthropology Champe-Weakly Fund.
