Las Cruces cultural center asks residents to help shape exhibit

LAS CRUCES — One little question, with thousands of potential answers, has curators at the Branigan Cultural Center asking everyone in the Mesilla Valley to pitch in their answer.

What’s Your Las Cruces, an interactive exhibit at the Branigan that runs through March 17, is designed to help start a conversation about the region’s history, culture and identity. Branigan Curator Normal Hartell said the result will be a permanent exhibit showing what Las Cruces means to those who live here and is expected to be complete in 2020.

“This is basically a community-based exhibit where we are asking the public to tell us the story of the Mesilla Valley instead of us providing all that information,” Hartell said.

The exhibit features five sections, each focusing on a different aspect of Las Cruces. Visitors will see pictures of life in current day Las Cruces, a video slideshow of historic Las Cruces, portraits of historical and contemporary members of the community and artifacts — including clothing, tools and jewelry. They will then have the opportunity to add their own pictures and written thoughts and observations about the community through the years.

Photos of people, landscapes or historic items can also be posted to Branigan’s social media sites, LCMuseums on Facebook, or LCmuseums on Instagram, using the hashtag #LCmuseums. Admission to the center, located at 501 N. Main St., is free.

The center is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

Yoli Diaz, a Las Cruces advocate for cancer patients, was among those to tour the exhibit during its first week.

“It kind of takes you back,” Diaz said. “I was born and raised here, so having an exhibit on anything that really promotes people and culture, I think that’s a big thing, a positive thing. For me, as I’ve gotten older, it’s even more important to interact with your community and make a difference.”

The exhibit’s first section asks “What issues are important to you?” and focuses on activism in Las Cruces. During the installment’s first week, this seemed to draw the most interest.

Visitors are asked to post their thoughts next to photos of recent civil activism in the city. Suggestions so far include land protection, DACA, the #MeToo movement, diversity, immigration, cultural respect, spaying and neutering pets, public lands and drunken driving.

Given the current political climate, that’s not surprising, Hartell said.

“I think we’re seeing a little more of what we are going through today, but that’s part of the history,” she said. “That’s part of Las Cruces history which is just as important.”