As I write this, our exhibits designer and preparations staff are at the Kovens Center, located at the Biscayne Bay Campus of Florida International University, to install the traveling version of Interama: Miami and the Pan-American Dream. The exhibition going up there is only natural, as BBC was part of the Graves Tract that the state of Florida purchased to house the permanent World’s Fair that never was. In a sense, the university’s campus is all that ever came of Interama. It was originally to be called “Interama University,” but was eventually combined with FIU when the creation of that institution was imminent. In fact, the only building that was ever built by the Inter-American Center Authority now houses the internationally-renowned hospitality management program.
In a sense, this coming together is very personal for me in a number of ways. I graduated from FIU twice, and both times I was at the Biscayne Bay Campus. I took a large portion of my undergraduate classes there, then worked at BBC as a teacher’s assistant while working on my master’s degree. Panther Square and the Wolfe University Center were the hub of my social life, and BBC became my second home.
In addition, when the Interama exhibition went up, I was still an educator, though I had started helping to digitize the archaeological collection thanks to an IMLS grant. I assisted with the final touches in my budding role as a curator, making it the first exhibit I ever worked on, and then gave the first tours to the general public in my role as a museum educator. Now, I am one of two persons working on launching a formal traveling exhibitions program, which could include this slightly scaled-down version of Interama.
If you want to see the exhibit, call 305-919-5700 for more information.
-- Robert Harkins, Assistant Curator - Object Collections
