Intern Spotlight: SarahVictoria Roseman

SarahVictoria learning how to make a clay bowl on the Festival grounds from Basque pottery master Blanka Gomez de Segura.

SarahVictoria Skylar Rosemann has been the 2016 summer media intern for SI’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH). Supervised by Elisa Hough, SarahVictoria’s internship responsibilities have primarily surrounded the production 2016 Folklife Festival; writing blog posts, taking pictures, and helping create/edit online content. During the Festival, Sarah had the opportunity to go around interviewing participants from all over the United States, and also from Basque Country. These interviews, photos, and recordings then have been featured on the Festival blog.

Besides numerous technical and practical skills in writing, communications, and media, SarahVictoria has learned a little Euskara, how to make a clay bowl, and how dance a Basque dance. She has also learned that producing events where people can ask questions directly of heritage bearers is enormously valuable for cross-cultural understanding and respect. SarahVictoria has loved being an intern for CFCH at the Smithsonian, and says she has “fallen in love” with the process of creating and executing cultural events.

Born and raised in Nevada, SarahVictoria has lived on the east coast for the past seven years for her undergraduate and graduate education. She recently graduated from Wesleyan University with a Master’s in Ethnomusicology. Her academic research focuses on Tibetan refugee communities in Northern India and the production of exile-nationalism in traditional musical forms.