Vital Matters / Art, Devotion, Practice | Office of Advanced Research Computing

image of ghana, along with ghana's flag in red, yellow, and green stripes with a black star in the middle. There is a gray world globe on the right with a pinpoint of Ghana's location

Working with collaborators from the Fowler Museum as part of a Lilly grant initiative “Vital Matters / Art, Devotion, Practice,” OARC’s GIS and Visualization team has been developing a number of related digital platforms, projects, and resources.

Launching in fall of 2024, the custom Vital Matters digital platform represents different perspectives on devotional works at the Fowler Museum—objects that arouse devotion, awe, and serenity; mediate relationships between human and spiritual realms; and are of vital importance to the cultural heritage of individuals and communities. Through a multimodal approach, this project brings together academic knowledge produced in museums and universities with the knowledge embedded in the practice of spiritually-based leaders, artists, and community organizers. Together, their insights shed light not only on the materiality of belief but also on vital matters of today, such as public health, the environment, and education.
For the Art of Africa and the African Diaspora project, the team published three StoryMaps based on Fowler exhibitions. In building an Open Educational Resource for 7-12 grade learners, StoryMaps allowed the team to easily incorporate geographic information alongside dynamic media-rich interactives for a multifaceted learning experience.
For the Fowler Museum and Islamic Studies program collaborative project Visual and Sonic Landscapes of Muslims in Los Angeles, the team produced a custom website with a database of oral history interviews and a map display of Muslim sites across Los Angeles.
In addition, in conjunction with the Vital Matters project, we supported the creation of annotated virtual tours of Fowler exhibitions and five annotated 3D object models and their associated video content libraries.
The GIS and Visualization group also participated in developing a module in the BruinLearn learning management system, along with the Digital Library Program, on Mexican Trees of Life and Death.
Finally, they supported the redesign of the Fowler Educational web pages to better showcase the museum’s new digital resources.