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  08/10/2020

  Helen Brechlin, Oral History, 2020/08/10

  Alex Brice interviews Helen Brechlin, who is an administrative supervisor at the Boston Institutes Contemporary Art Museum. The interview begins with Helen discussing the onset of quarantine and the transition to working from home. She explains the intricacies of managing a team digitally. Additionally, Helen goes into how living with a partner who also works from home, you have to develop a new routine and learning to balance time and space. Helen then explains some things she did teleworking to keep her team strong, including having weekly communications and diving deeper into some of the artists displayed at the museum. Then Helen is asked about the George Floyd incident and how it impacted her and she expressed the importance of community, advocating change, and separately the importance of real communication over social media. Lastly, Helen talked about the differences after reopening the museum and making it safe and comfortable for visitors.
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  2020-07-03

  Tipsy Tales

  We spent 2 and a half years building the [Philippines'] first immersive theater on Filipino Folklore. We ran for an amazing six months serving thousands of locals and tourists alike. We had a lot of dreams for the company. We wanted to export multi-sensory interactive theatrical experiences on Filipino culture to the world. We wanted to make people happy. The pandemic had shut down both live entertainment and the tourism industry. We could no longer afford to keep it running in the new normal. When we had to close our production, it was heart breaking. Everyone knows how hard it is [to] open a business, but few people talk about he kind of grief that comes with closing one. For a while, it felt like I had a lost a child. So young and full of potential that died before it's time. There was a pain to losing something you've worked so hard to grow from the ground up. But at the end of the day, we are grateful for the chance to have brought a dream to life, even just for a short while. Dreams are our greatest rebellion against these uncertain times. My greatest hope is that we never forget that in the darkness, we can be our own light.