Music and Performing Arts Curatorial Internship
NOTE: Applications submitted through Handshake will NOT be considered.
Desired Majors and Areas of Study: African American Studies, History, Music, Museum Studies
The Office of Curatorial Affairs (OCA), including the Centers, facilitates the intellectual work of the Museum by collecting artifacts, ensuring collection preservation and stewardship, conducting research and scholarship, and sharing the rich history and culture of African Americans and all people of African descent with a diverse public in accessible, multifaceted ways including exhibition, digitization, and publication.
The Culture division of OCA documents, collects and preserves information and materials related to the cultural heritage of African Americans and other select groups, whose actions have influenced and/or contributed to the African American experience, including those associated with the African Diaspora. Specific areas of focus include: sports, music, the performing arts, oral history, literary arts, dress and textiles, decorative arts, foodways and folklife in their many diverse forms.
Music and Performing Arts Intern will directly assist the Curatorial Museum Specialist in collections acquisition and processing, object documentation, research and writing. The intern can anticipate performing object research, learning to drafting object acquisition proposals, understanding exhibition maintenance, assisting the Music and Performing Arts team with research and writing for a book on the material culture of African American music, working with NMAAHC’s archivist in processing music-related archives, and content development for digital media platforms. The Music and Performing Arts Intern will also be invited to take part in meetings with the Curator of Music and Performing Arts and other museum staff. Other projects may be assigned as the work develops.
The intern can expect to leave their internship experience with:
- Knowledge on object handling, research, and documentation
- Understanding of writing object acquisition proposals
- How to use the TMS (The Museum System) collection information database
- Archival processing skills
- Comprehensive writing skills as it pertains to interpretative material for general audiences
The ideal candidate will be a graduate student with a scholarly background in African American music and strong research and writing skills. The ability to read music and familiarity with Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, is a plus.
Duties Include (but are not limited to):
- Conduct research needed to enhance collection records
- Draft object acquisition proposals
- Create collection inventories
- Draft and edit texts relating to collections and exhibitions
- Update content for exhibition digital interactive
- Write photo captions, collection stories or blog posts
- Attend team meetings