El Archivo Guaiquerí: A Caribbean Seafaring People from Eastern Venezuela

This project, led by Dr Oliver Antczak, Dr Fidel Rodríguez Velásquez and Dr Dacia Viejo Rose is a planning grant project funded by the Modern Engangered Archives Programme (Arcadia) based at UCLA Library. This project focused on the inventory and conservation of Dr. Fernando Cervigón's collection at the Museo Marino de Margarita which is threatened by difficult conditions. A vast number of materials were catalogued, including 4,454 photographs and 7,862 negatives, documenting the life of the region's fishing communities and the Guaiquerí culture. The project established a dedicated digital preservation center at the museum and strengthened community collaborations through a series of seminars and participations at local cultural congresses. The project identified much more than expected in Fernando Cervigón's collection, successfully achieving the goal of finding the materials, pictures, and videos of Cervigón’s as well as Jose Maria Cruxent's works from the mid-20th century, which are essential witnesses of the Guaiquerí culture in the mid-20th century. The archive continues being developed, now with support from Caribbean Digital Scholarship Collective and is accessible here.