NAOMI STURM-WIJESINGHE ON SHAKE THE COSMOS
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Today, I am so excited to chat with Naomi - a fellow Bowdoin College alumnus - about her expertise in folklore and how her unique career unfolded.
Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Folklore Project and Co-Founder of Los Herederos, a media arts organization dedicated to inheriting culture in the digital age. A folklorist and ethnomusicologist by training, Naomi specializes in themes of urban and immigrant folklife, indigenous and mestizo traditions of the Americas, Sri Lankan folk arts and waterlore. Her deeply held belief that local knowledge both sustains communities and advances the quality of urban life, is central to these organization's approach to folklife in service of social change.
Naomi holds an MA in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University and a BA from Bowdoin College. Her public folklore work, media publications, and writing deal extensively with: 1) issues of ethnic identity, political economy and cultural sustainability, 2) transmedia storytelling and documentation, and 3) exploring new models for holistic economic development through folklife-centered cultural tourism.
In previous years, Naomi has served as the Director of Public Programs for the New York City - based Center for Traditional Music and Dance where she developed and implemented the Sustaining Cultures Program which included Soorya NYC, a multi-year Sri Lankan community based project committed to building interethnic bridges through the island nation’s traditional arts in a post conflict diasporic milieu. From 2014-2017 she served as the Regional Folklorist based at Staten Island Arts where she founded and designed Staten Island’s Working Waterfront: Maritime Folklife of New York City’s Forgotten Borough, an initiative that aimed to revitalize the social capital of Staten Island’s waterfront through cultural heritage tourism based in New York harbor’s unique folk cultural traditions. She continues to develop her decade - long work on transnational Andean music in NYC and beyond through an interdisciplinary multi-sited project called Urban Condors. She sits on the Board of the Directors of the New York Folklore Society.
Also, did you know that you can get yourself a copy of the Shake The Cosmos Journal as part of the personal development course? Check it out here.