Cordry Internship in Latin American Folk Art

Collecting Mexican Folk Art The Science Museum's Cordry Intern in Latin American Folk Art recently returned to the museum after three months in the Mexican village of Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca. Mya Dosch, a 2009 graduate of Carleton College, studied the pottery production of the famed Aguilar sisters, and purchased 50 of their artworks for the museum's ethnology collection. Learn More

Woman's shawl from Zinacantan, Chiapas, Mexico, collected by the 1994 Cordry Intern.

The Anthropology Department offers Minnesota college students the opportunity to conduct hands-on ethnographic research and collecting in Latin America through the Cordry Internship. Every other year a Cordry Intern is selected to study folk art collections at the Museum under supervision of Museum staff. The Intern travels to Latin America where they select and document objects that fill in gaps in the existing collection. Cordry Interns are provided with a stipend, plus funds for travel, research, and acquisitions.

The Cordry Internship at the Science Museum of Minnesota began in 1989 with a monetary gift from the late Dorothy Mann Cordry. Donald and Dorothy Cordry were self-taught Mesoamerican scholars fascinated by the arts and crafts of indigenous Mexico. They lived for many years in Minnesota and in Mexico and amassed an impressive collection of Mexican folk art including masks, puppets, and huipiles (woven blouses), among other examples of material culture.

Contemporary Costa Rican ceramics

The Cordry Internship has focused on folk-arts such as ceramics and textiles in Mexico and Central America. The 2000-2001 Cordry Intern worked on Ceramic Production and Pre-Columbian Replicas from San Vicente de Nicoya, Costa Rica. The 2002-2003 Cordry Intern studied changes in style, manufacturing and marketing of huipiles, or woven blouses, of the Maya living in San Andrés Larrainzar, Chiapas, Mexico. The 2004-2005 Cordry Intern also focused on contemporary ceramics in San Vicente de Nicoya, Costa Rica. The most recent Cordry Intern studied the ceramics of Aguilar family of Ocotlán, Oaxaca.

For more information about the Cordry Internship, contact Tilly Laskey, Curator of Ethnology, at or (651) 221-9432.