VISTA Noel Mollinedo will be starting a graduate degree this Fall at the University of New Mexico towards an MA in Art History. Through an art historical lens, Mollinedo intends to bring together differing narratives of land heritage in academic literature. Through tracing the word “wilderness” in all its varying governmental and environmental roles he believes he can bridge understandings of American history from disputes over “rights to nature” to climate change crisis. Even though land appropriation happens internationally, especially in a globalized economy, he will focus on human-land interactions in the Americas. His several seasons of work with government-environmental organizations will inform his research on how contemporary land relations are reinforced through a past often remembered through vacant landscape paintings and 19th - 20th century photography in the Southwestern United States. As a Design Specialist with STEAM New Mexico, Mollinedo has worked at the Vizlab in the Center for Advanced Research Computing. Here he created a website for STEAM NM and has helped run educational workshops on 3D Printing and designing with the SketchUp program. During his service, he was also given the opportunity to work with UNM’s Lobo Gardens as a Project Assistant helping orchestrate the Lobo Gardens Class. This also resulted in the installation of, “Lobo Gardens, An Exhibition: Rethinking Relations” a show documenting the past seven years of Lobo Gardens since its student-lead creation to its current incorporation into the Community Engaged Learning Research Program. Overall, STEAM NM has been a positive year of patient growth, adapting to the challenges and lessons of serving as a VISTA with AmeriCorps. In-line with its mission to serve underrepresented and impoverished populations of the American public, AmeriCorps philosophizes that, by living a similar role, its volunteers will best understand how to help. Most likely, Mollinedo would not have returned to academia as quickly if he had not maintained a consistent presence at UNM while working with STEAM NM. Creating the Lobo Gardens Exhibit also provided invaluable experience in gallery work that will serve him in future work. Not only a stepping stone or platform upon which to realize goals, STEAM NM is also a community of diverse life paths coming together to inspire creative learning in New Mexico. |