CTRLxALTxHERITAGE: Behind the Scenes with the Folklife Storytellers Workshop

During the Smithsonian Folklife Festival season, interns are everywhere: aiding accessibility efforts, coordinating events, escorting participants, and ensuring no part of the Festival slips through cracks. In May, I became an intern with the Folklife Storytellers Workshop program, a multimedia cohort dedicated to creative documentation and presentation of the Festival.

We call ourselves CTRLxALTxHERITAGE as a play on “Ctrl + Alt + Delete,” the computer keyboard command often used to restart systems. As a youth cohort under the mentorship of multimedia storyteller Annika Young, we are resetting how people approach cultural preservation and storytelling in an ever-changing digital world—a perfect fit for a Festival program titled Youth and the Future of Culture, right?

Unlike most interns at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, who concluded their internships at the end of the summer, we’re still deep in our projects through November. Now that we’ve sorted through the footage we shot and interviews we conducted throughout the Festival, we’re piecing together a feature-length documentary film, producing a podcast series, and writing articles like the one you’re reading now.

My name is Shauri Thacker, and I’m a creative writer and post-undergraduate intern from rural Utah. Since so much of what we’ve been doing is behind the scenes, I figured I would put my skills to use and show off my friends holding the cameras and pens: Sebastian Barajas, Elise Jeffries, Ella Peters, Abby Scamardella, Joella Shearer, and Nakalaya “Por” Tupsamphan. I hope you enjoy getting to know them as much as I have.

Sebastian Barajas

As shy as he claims to be, California-born Sebastian knows nearly everyone working in the Center and can always be counted on for information and contacts. An art history graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Sebastian came into this internship thinking it would be like other museum internships he’s had, where he was given tasks to do quietly and independently. He quickly discovered that the Festival environment was the complete opposite.

“We have been working together, and then we’ve been working with Festival participants and Festival curators, et cetera,” Sebastian told me. “Even before the Festival, we’re together and talking to each other all day, which is not something that I’m used to doing in a job but that I like to do. I’m a very social person, so I’m happy that’s what our job is: collaborating and talking to each other.”

The Festival excited Sebastian because, much like museums and galleries, it allows people the space to present their art. “I learned a lot more about people’s cultures and the things that they’re doing, and I was even able to see my own culture, Mexican American culture, reflected in the Festival,” he said. “It’s a good reminder that people are interested in you, in your culture, in your practices, and that [culture] is something that is always going to be around.”

Sebastian also noted that, because of this internship, his aspirations for the future have changed. “The Storytellers Workshop is a great stepping stone in thinking about what I want to do now,” he said. “I now know because of the program that I want to find other ways to continue this work [of cultural vitality and documentation].”

Elise Jeffries

Elise is a Penn State University film student from Virginia with a keen eye for great shots and a passion for being behind a camera. Within the Center’s digital archives, she can find any photo, video, or audio clip a person wants. This internship has helped her grow exponentially and given her a lot of well-rounded experience, especially in teamwork.

“Our cohort, it’s very big on collaboration,” Elise said. “I’m normally working by myself, so having a group of people, especially to work on a documentary together and have all our voices heard, and we’re all working together, was really awesome. Going forward, I definitely think I’ll be a better collaborator.”

The Festival itself was eye-opening. As a videographer, she moved throughout the National Mall, recording moments from the day’s first demonstrations to its final concert. “[The Festival] reinforced [culture’s] importance to me,” Elise expressed. “Being able to go to a festival and seeing that culture is everywhere—it definitely reinforced how important it is, and how tradition, it’s carried down, and it’s still here, even with young people.”

Being a young, curious intern is a strength, I gathered from Elise. The internship, as well as the Festival experience, has given her useful knowledge for her upcoming internship in Los Angeles. Her advice to future interns: “Remember that you are here to learn. It’s a learning process, and there are things you’re not going to know. Everyone’s doing new things; we’re trying different medias. I’m not really a writer, but I took a shot at writing. I tried. It’s okay to ask questions and make mistakes because ultimately you are here to learn.”

Ella Peters

An anthropology and government student at Georgetown University who moved from Washington state, Ella is observant and detail oriented. If there’s an angle we haven’t considered, she’s most likely to point it out.

Ella told me that CTRLxALTxHERITAGE has been educational on all fronts. “I’m doing different kinds of writing than I’ve ever done before,” she said. “I’m learning about how a podcast is produced. I’m learning about how a documentary is produced, how an organization like this does their social media output. I think the greatest resource that I’ve had here is my fellow interns, who are just so skilled at what they do and who have such a wide range of skills. It’s been really fun to just watch my peers work.”

Alongside Sebastian, Ella interviewed various Festival participants, which was a highlight for her since each person she spoke with reinforced the dynamic nature of culture. “Getting to see the Folklife Festival—it’s a really unique way to express cultural practices,” she told me. “One of the things that museums sometimes can’t convey is what culture in action looks like, what you see when somebody is making a wrought-iron gate or somebody is performing a song.”

Working at the Center has been pivotal to Ella’s career path, and she hopes future interns also get life-changing experiences. To them, she says, “Be curious. Exercise curiosity. I think that’s something that the Center will really allow you to do and encourage you to do. You may find that you’re interested in something that you didn’t even know about before starting.”

Abby Scamardella

While Idaho-born Abby shares the same college and areas of study as Ella, her passion lies in film. When she’s in the director’s chair, she knows exactly what she wants from each shot and how to get it from her crew. She expressed that, after her interview, being part of the CTRLxALTxHERITAGE cohort felt inevitable.

“No other job that I applied for fit exactly this intersection of culture and film and media and all of these things that I’m so interested in,” Abby said. “It was a full-circle moment where I knew this was coming, and I knew this was supposed to happen.”

Abby believes that the internship has taught her to value what’s irreplaceable about people: “Everyone brings a very vital element to [CTRLxALTxHERITAGE], and [we] mesh together so well, so what I would take away from this is appreciating and being more aware of everyone’s specific talents and how they can mesh with yours, and how in the end it all comes together in a way that you couldn’t imagine, and that if one person was different, it wouldn’t exist.”

Abby admitted to me that she never saw herself essentially directing our documentary’s production. Unlike other internships, this one has allowed her to gain experience in the role she wants and encouraged her to speak up. To future interns, she advises, “If you come in and you know you want to do something, say, ‘I want to do this. I’m good at it. Here’s why I should do it,’ and start stepping into these roles.”

Joella Shearer

Carleton College student Joella sees herself as a historian, dancer, and filmmaker who will someday find herself leaving her Ohio home to edit films on the West Coast. Like Abby, when she found this internship, she saw it as a perfect fit and opportunity.

“This was the perfect amalgamation of all my interests and something that I have a very deep interest in doing professionally,” Joella said. “I’m so grateful to be able to be here and to have this opportunity that feels like it was perfectly designed for what I’ve been doing and what I want to continue to do.”

Joella has the enormous task of being the documentary’s primary editor, which means sorting through, selecting, and arranging video clips. “I did the math the other day, and I think we have fifty-seven interviews with participants and curators and visitors to the Festival,” she said. “With visitors, I think it’s probably around sixty. Being able to work with that much material has been really exciting and also a very big element of growth for me because I’m having to be organized in ways that I haven’t had to before.”

For Joella, CTRLxALTxHERITAGE has not only been a way to elevate youth voices—her own included—but also an unforgettable chance to see how youth are continuing cultural practices while also shaping them.

“It’s been really wonderful to see how these young people are adding their own flare and their own twists while still preserving the original thing,” she told me. “[Culture] isn’t something that they’re going to lock away and keep still and stagnant and not ever change. It’s something that is alive.”

Por Tupsamphan

From day one of the Festival, we learned that handing Por a camera meant she would vanish for the day with extra batteries and SD cards in her pockets. She’s an avid videographer and editor with a knack for unconventional shots and cuts. A fresh graduate of UC Riverside from Thailand, Por hopes to use all the skills and insights she’s gotten from the internship to make her way into film.

Por told me that she views CTRLxALTxHERITAGE as being akin to professionals, and working with us has been a completely different experience to working with her professors or classmates, who are often overly competitive. “I see the program as a production team,” she said. “Everyone [has] their job and their role, and everyone shine[s] in their role. It’s us that make this cohort. We come together and click really nicely.”

While the internship gave her a chance to showcase and build her skills, getting to experience the Festival also gave Por a new perspective on American culture. Seeing various aspects first hand instead of from a textbook was incredibly special. “I know that America is built with different communities, and they come together to build this country, and seeing [the] Festival in a theme of youth of culture—this is [the] America that I think all of us want,” she said.

“I can see passion behind everyone [in the cohort],” Por expressed to me. “I know that everyone [will] come out with passion, too. We come in together as a group, and we are doing this because we are the future. We know that we are a group that can bring hope.”

Me (Shauri Thacker)

During my interview for this internship, I told Annika that I felt stuck. Since graduating a year earlier from Southern Utah University with a bachelor’s degree in English, I hadn’t found an editing job like I expected, and I wanted new experiences to push me like my creative writing and other classes had. She gave me the challenge I needed in spades.

Originally, I anticipated applying my skill set primarily to work on our magazine and blog content. I figured my writing skills were inapplicable to the audio and visual storytelling needed for the documentary and the podcast. Annika and the rest of my cohort quickly made me realize how versatile my skills are and helped me cultivate new ones.

Like my friends, being part of CTRLxALTxHERITAGE has reinforced how valuable culture is and how deeply I want to see it treasured, lived, and shared. Capturing the Festival—how it came together, the traditions and skills the participants showcased, the experiences visitors took home as core memories—was a privilege that reshaped my career ambitions.

To future interns: acknowledge who you are and the skills you have while embracing who you can become and what you can learn. Annika told us on the first day that internships are what you make of them, and she was right.

Shauri Thacker is a Folklife Storytellers Workshop intern focusing on writing and editing.

Illustrator Anh Thu Pham-Vu is a former program intern for the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.