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Questions of Practice: Phoenix Art Museum's Amada Cruz on Engaging Bilingual Communities in Museums

Questions of Practice: Phoenix Art Museum’s Amada Cruz on Engaging Bilingual Communities in Museums

We asked Phoenix Art Museum director Amada Cruz if her Hispanic heritage has affected her thinking about audience engagement with bilingual communities. “Your autobiography certainly informs your practice,” she says. “Welcoming people in their own language is really important…It’s about opening up the doors to this community and saying ‘you are part of us.’”

Phoenix Art Museum’s Amada Cruz on engaging bilingual communities in museums. Filmed at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage on April 27, 2016.

Amada Cruz is The Sybil Harrington Director of the Phoenix Art Museum. Prior to her appointment in 2015, Cruz served as executive director at San Antonio-based Artpace, known for its international artist residency and exhibition programs. She also previously served as program director for United States Artists in Los Angeles, where she was responsible for all programming activities of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations initiative. In 2016, Cruz served as a Pew Fellowships panelist.