Mestizaje
Mestizaje is an interactive Latin American virtual art museum connecting painting, literature, music, and cultural identity through a multi-page web experience.
Inspired by the blending of Indigenous, African, and European influences across Latin America, the project encourages visitors to explore art and culture through country navigation, multimedia, and creative interaction.
My role
Web Design & Development, UX/UI Design, Front-End Development, Back-End Integration
Tools
XHTML / HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, SVG, Canvas, XAMPP
Context
Academic / Independent Development Project
What I worked on
I developed Mestizaje as an interactive virtual museum for exploring Latin American art and culture. I built a country-filtered artwork gallery, user accounts, and a favorites feature using PHP, JavaScript, and MySQL.
I also added country facts, music playback, a light/dark switch, and a browser-based drawing tool. The project includes a cultural video I edited and an SVG logo I designed.
Approach
I organized the database into related tables for countries, artists, artworks, users, and favorites. This structure connects each artwork with its cultural context and supports country-based browsing. I created a CSV import script to help populate the collection and configured UTF-8 storage to preserve accented names and text.
JavaScript updates the gallery and favorites without reloading the page. Music controls stop the previous track before playing another, while shared PHP components keep navigation and page layouts consistent.
Skills Demonstrated
- Building database-driven websites with PHP and MySQL.
- Using JavaScript to request content and update the interface.
- Managing user sessions and account-based favorites.
- Designing relational databases and importing CSV records.
- Integrating audio, video, SVG, and Canvas features.
- Developing locally with XAMPP and checking markup with W3C validation.