The Museum at Bethel Woods Announces Preservation Fellowship

As stewards of the historic site of the 1969 Woodstock festival, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, located in Bethel, NY, is continuing to discover and develop the sacred grounds in order to preserve their integrity. To advance the public interpretation of the historic landscape, The Museum at Bethel Woods has selected its first-ever Landscape Preservation Fellow. Eleanor Hein joined the Museum staff on February 1st, 2021 to begin the work of the inaugural Fellowship.

Hein, who earned a Bachelor of Arts in Hospitality Management and a minor in Archaeology and Anthropology from Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA, was chosen after an open recruiting process that attracted more than a dozen qualified candidates. She will assist The Museum at Bethel Woods Senior Curator Dr. Neal Hitch in creating planning documents, drawings, and reports in order to produce location-based historic landscape interpretive strategies.

"The Museum at Bethel Woods has a direct attachment to its location and its history, which is exciting for me as an opportunity to experience the legacies of the Woodstock festival from both museum and archaeological perspectives," said Hein of her new position. "I hope my skills can be utilized to promote sustainability of the Museum and that I can also develop new skills and interests along the way. I look forward to working with other staff of Bethel Woods and making the most of my time here," she added.

"The Museum at Bethel Woods has always had a plan to increase interpretation and visitation around the historic site," stated Dr. Hitch. "The pandemic has accelerated the public's desire to do more things outside. Our goal is to put stories into the landscape in places where they happened, and Eleanor's background and experience is an absolute perfect match for what we hope to accomplish," he continued.

An area of significant focus throughout the duration of the Fellowship will be "The Teepee," a large timber structure supporting a boulder suspended by ropes. As one of the six installations completed at the original festival by students from the University of Miami led by Professor Bill Ward labeled the "art crew," the goal of these structures was to complement and highlight the naturally-occurring environment they existed within. Today, the installation is marked by stone paving with the boulder still intact. Following the fieldwork at the Teepee site, Hein will develop ways to engage the public with these historic remnants in order to re-emphasize an early concept and key element of the festival: having artwork permeate throughout the landscape.

While Bethel Woods envisioned the Fellowship prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the public health crisis underscored the need for a program that would assist graduates entering the workforce at the time when opportunity might be limited by economic or other factors. The Fellowship is designed as a one-year opportunity expandable to two, pending the availability of funding and organizational support.

The 2021-22 Fellowship is funded by the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation and through in-kind support by Bethel Woods. A campaign to raise funds for the current and future Fellowship is ongoing.

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts expects to reopen its doors for programming in the spring. The 2021 Special Exhibit, Lights, Color, Fashion: Psychedelic Posters and Patterns of 1960s San Francisco, which showcases a phenomenal ensemble of San Francisco rock posters and fashion from the kaleidoscopic years of 1964 to 1972 gathered by collector Gary Westford, is slated to open Saturday, April 3rd.

For more information, a schedule for virtual programming, and to stay up-to-date on the latest from Bethel Woods, please visit bethelwoodscenter.org. Donations to this project and to Bethel Woods in general may be made online at the bethelwoodscenter.org or by calling 845-583-2184.

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