Karina Roca, MSHP candidate featured on NPR
AUGUSt 3, 2025
BY Shyla Krishnappa
Master of Science in Historic Preservation candidate Karina Roca was featured on NPR for her participation in Washington, D.C. at this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Visitors at the festival could find Karina demonstrating the age-old craft of blacksmithing.
Apprenticing as a blacksmith, Karina showed how forge welding can create bonds that last for centuries. Originally inspired by a documentary about a master blacksmith who became her mentor, Karina found beauty and meaning in the craft’s longevity and history.
“I’m sick of being told that my craft is dead,” she told NPR’s Pien Huang. “It is endangered, and all that is endangered can be saved.”
Roca, who has spent the summer interning at Colonial Williamsburg’s Blacksmith shop, says being at the festival surrounded by artisans from around the country and the world has been energizing. “We need each other. Our liberation is bound together, and this has been such an affirming celebration of that very concept,” she reflected.
Read the full article here.
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