Art and Culture News | Pasatiempo

The project threatened the habitat of Mexican Freetail and Pallid bats living in and around the Tunstall attic. DCA contracted with wildlife biologists and bat removal specialists to complete a bat remediation project.

In December, New Mexico Historic Sites’ staff and conservators from the New Mexico History Museum began work to support the return of the artifacts to the site in advance of the reinstallation of its exhibitions, which are slated to reopen in spring. nmhistoricsites.org /lincoln — Michael Abatemarco

In February, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a $1.5 million grant awarded in support of Native Bound-Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Americans Enslaved, a project of former New Mexico State Historian, anthropologist, and Indigenous slavery scholar Estevan Rael-Gálvez. The digital database and centralized repository focus on the histories and experiences of millions of enslaved Indigenous Americans.

“The goal of Native Bound-Unbound is to gather data, records, and stories, and in time, to transform that content into digital exhibitions, chronologies, and new types of cartographies into a single, public website,” said Rael-Gálvez in a press release. “When it is completed, the repository will offer a distinct source of materials that have never been organized into a single collection and will provide a major source for educators, scholars, storytellers, artists, and, most critically, descendants.”

The project sheds light on an obscure chapter in the history of the Americas, which is supported by records in archival repositories around the country and the world, including legal cases, censuses, letters, last wills, church records for baptisms, marriages, and burials. In addition, much of the material is held by individual families, including personal records, objects, photographs, and oral histories. The Mellon Foundation is providing the funding for the project’s development through the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe. mellon.org — M.A.

ARTsmart, a local organization dedicated to providing access to quality arts education in Santa Fe’s public schools, will award its 2022 Art Changes Lives Scholarship to a graduating high school senior art student in Santa Fe.

The winning student will receive $5,000 for the first year of visual arts studies at a university or college, including a two-year community college, and $1,500 for three subsequent years. The award will be given directly to the college or university and the winner must provide ARTsmart with their student ID number, contact name, and the address of the admissions department of their chosen school or university.

The Taos School of Music has announced the appointment of  Erik Christian Peterson as its new executive director.

Peterson is only the fourth person to hold the position in the institution’s 59-year history. He was selected after an extensive national search. Peterson’s role includes overseeing the school’s mission of preparing the next generation of early-career musicians for successful performance careers through a program of rigorous chamber music instruction under world-renowned string quartets and chamber musicians.

An alumnus of the renowned Juilliard School in New York City where he studied violin and viola, Peterson earned a doctorate from the Cleveland Institute of Music/Case Western Reserve University. He’s a founding member of the Voxare String Quartet and a recipient of Chamber Music America’s coveted ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. In addition to lecturing at New York University, the University of Oxford, and the British Library, among other institutions of merit, he served for six years as festival and artistic director of the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado, overseeing up to 60 events per season.

“I’m honored to helm an organization that has played such a vital role in the lives of so many musicians,” Peterson said in a press release. “As we move forward, not only will the school continue to expand its position as an educational leader but will be at the forefront in digital, organizational strategy, and community partnerships.” taosschoolofmusic.com — M.A.