Catalyzing Newport welcomes visiting catalyst team Estevan Rael-Gálvez and Cindi Malinick for a weeklong residency December 12th – 16th 2016. During their visit, Rael-Gálvez and Malinick will lead diverse cultural, historical, and community leaders through a process of dialogues and site visits that connect to residents’ sensory experiences of Newport. The duo have developed a unique “sensory” practice that assists communities and organizations to vision, plan and implement transformational change in order to strengthen, position, and sustain themselves, now and into the future.
The discussions and exercises Rael-Gálvez will lead are timely as the city of Newport finalizes its strategic plan and communities look for connection and dialogue during what has proven to be a fractious time in our country. Exploring Newport through the senses will create new understandings of our environment, the knowledge that we are convinced can incubate new economic and artistic prospects as well as expand the possibilities of new relationships, ideas and opportunities.
Leading up to and during their December residency with Catalyzing Newport, Rael-Gálvez and Malinick will be empowering Newport’s citizens to collectively create the story of their city by reconnecting to their senses.
Catalyst Events
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Catalyst Bios
Estevan Rael-Gálvez, PhD
Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez is a creative strategist and the founding principal of Rael-Gálvez & Associates, which supports transformative work within communities, governments and cultural based organizations. Dedicated to stimulating generative ideas and realizing innovation and juxtaposition (including between art and story), as well as their applications to propel change in the world, Rael-Gálvez & Associates is guided by inspiring creativity, building community, and raising consciousness. Focused on elevating the collective imagination, his work is based on establishing connections between people, places and ideas.
In his capacity as strategist, Rael-Gálvez has collaborated with a range of public and private sector entities. Most recently, he designed Culture Connects Santa Fe – A Cultural Cartography, a cultural plan for the City of Santa Fe that framed a 12-week conversation about the intrinsic value of culture and how it can be leveraged for the vibrancy, health and wellbeing of the community.
A leader experienced in the executive management of cultural-based organizations, Dr. Rael-Gálvez has led a full career as a successful senior executive administering cultural and educational institutions at national non-profit organizations and government agencies. Prior to forming his consulting practice, he most recently served as the Senior Vice President of Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, with responsibility for leading the strategic direction across the portfolio of National Trust Historic Sites/museums. Prior to the National Trust, Dr. Rael-Gálvez served as Executive Director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the largest Latino/a cultural center in the United States, with executive oversight of a 51-acre campus, including a Performing Arts Center, Art Museum, Library-Archive, and an award-winning Educational Department. Dr. Rael- Gálvez also served nearly a decade as the State Historian of New Mexico, the leading advocate and authority on New Mexico history. During his tenure, he established several initiatives, including the Office of the State Historian’s Scholars’ Program; the Internship Program; and the New Mexico Digital History Project, recipient of the National Council on Public History’s Best in the Nation award.
Throughout his career, Dr. Rael-Gálvez has served on numerous commissions, boards, and legislative committees, most currently as a trustee for both the Santa Fe University of Arts and Design and the Santa Fe Opera, where he has led strategic planning efforts. Other participatory work of note includes membership, under the appointment of the Secretary of the Interior, on the Latino Scholars Expert Committee, advising on the “American Latino Heritage Initiative,” and on the “Humanities at the Crossroads” Advisory Group, a convening of key humanities constituency leaders, working to better define the role of the humanities in the 21st century; and grant jury panels for the Pew Foundation and for the General Services Administration architectural distinction awards.
Dr. Rael-Gálvez attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned his B.A. in English Literature, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in American Cultures. His dissertation, “Identifying Captivity and Capturing Identity: Narratives of American Indian Slavery,” focuses on the meanings of American Indian slavery and a unique legacy and identity in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado; he is currently working on the manuscript, The Silence of Slavery. Dr. Rael-Gálvez is also the recipient of numerous fellowships, including from the Ford Foundation, the School of American Research, the University of Michigan, the Newberry Library, the Huntington Library, and the Smithsonian Institution.
A native son of the American Southwest, with ancestral connections to both Latino and Native American communities, Estevan was raised working on a farm/ranch stewarded by his family for multiple generations. This upbringing profoundly shaped his work ethic, core values, and understanding and curiosity of the delicacy and strength of the human condition and unwavering belief in the transformative power of memory, knowledge and will.
Cindi Malinick
Cindi Malinick is the Chief Cultural Resources Executive for the Girl Scouts of the USA, where she oversees the Cultural Resources Department, a unit of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. The Department brings together as a portfolio the places – or real assets – of GSUSA embodied in their cultural resources, in order to fully leverage them in support of the organization’s vision “to be the premier leadership experience for girls in the United States.”
The real assets are the formerly stand-alone, yet nationally significant historic sites – the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace (1821) in Savannah, GA and the Edith Macy Conference Center (1926) in Westchester County, NY – as well as the National Historic Preservation Center (NHPC), which includes the Girl Scout Visitor Experience and Archives. Together, these places and their staffs coalesce around a singular mission to offer experiences for girls to grow in courage, confidence, and character, welcoming more than 100,000 visitors annually from around the world, and encompassing over 400 acres, more than 40 roofed structures, and a significant number of curatorial objects, decorative arts, media, photographs, archives, and other historically significant documents related to the history of the Girl Scouts.
The Cultural Resources Department also serves as a resource to the Girl Scout Councils across the nation regarding their own cultural resources in order to strengthen the Movement, providing insight and recommendations regarding stewardship, conservation, public access and engagement, and development opportunities.
Previously, Cindi served as the Deputy and Chief of Staff to the Senior Vice President of Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C, where she assisted in the oversight/management of the Trust’s nationwide portfolio of historic sites, encompassing over 4000 acres, 200+ roofed structures, and more than 60,000 art/historical objects. Cindi has also led museums and historic sites in southern California and Washington, DC, worked as the first exchange staff from the United States with the National Trust of Western Australia, and written and spoken broadly on relevant topics in the field.
She holds her BA from the College of William and Mary and an MA from the University of San Diego.
Local Action Team
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