BKM Intern Success Story: Rose Varona Camara
When did you intern at the Museum, and what was your role?
I interned in the Registrar’s Office in summer 2018.
I know that after you left your internship at the Brooklyn Museum you interned in the 20th and 21st century Design Department at the Milwaukee Art Museum in your home city. In what ways did your internship at the Brooklyn Museum prepare you for that internship?
Working in the Registrar’s Office was really valuable because it’s truly a behind the scenes look at how a museum prepares for exhibitions. At the Milwaukee Art Museum, I was able to witness the formulation of an exhibition from a curatorial point of view, but my experience at the Brooklyn Museum put that point of view into perspective. Without the Registrars and Conservators, these great exhibitions, temporary or permanent, that the public enjoys wouldn’t be able to happen. I feel that I began my internship at the Milwaukee Art Museum with a well rounded knowledge of curatorial practice. This is in part due to knowledge of how the Registrar’s office operates.
I'm in my final week of grad school at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London. I’m studying Renaissance Italian Art. In my dissertation I intend to focus on the African Diaspora within visual art of the 14th and 15th Century Italy (though the specificity of my dissertation hasn’t been hashed out yet.)
I love graduate school. I really do! There's freedom in studying a specialized subject and I look forward to going to my classes every week. Its engaging and challenging but in a good way! London has so much to offer as well. It's similar to New York in that there's always something to do and see and innumerable places to go (and eat). One can never be bored here - especially if one is interested in the visual arts.
Where do you want to go from there?
After leaving the museum and now in my studies I would say that my desire to have a career in an encyclopedic art museum is still my plan. Specifically, since being at the Brooklyn Museum I have realized that I would like a leadership role. Whether that be head of a department, curator, director, etc. I want to talk to people and teach people about why art is important, what it can do for the world, and what it has done historically, among other things.
Additionally, I want to break down the elitism surrounding these institutions.
Lastly, I want to be part of a future of museum professionals who want to keep art museums honest and representative of their surrounding communities. Because I can go on about it at length, I’ll just say that there’s much work to be done in art museums, still, to bring them up to speed in the 21st century.
What was the most memorable moment of your internship?
I couldn’t limit it to just one moment. Spending evenings walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, watching swing dancers outside the Brooklyn Public Library, attending a screening of West Side Story in Prospect Park, and generally exploring New York City with great friends that I made during the internship are at the top of my list. Mixed with the multiple "field trips” to art museums around the city including The Whitney and CitiBank - summer 2018 made for a whole slew of memorable moments.
What is something that you love about the Brooklyn Museum?
The exhibitions that the Museum puts on have been stellar. Being in the Registrars office, I was involved in the deinstallation of Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985. I also witnessed the opening of David Bowie Is. As my internship was coming to a close, the Registrars Office was preparing for the forthcoming exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art In the Age of Black Power.
What advice can you give to someone interested in interning at the Brooklyn Museum?
Be curious! The Citi Internship offers opportunities to see the art world from several angles. Take advantage of all of them. There could be an aspect of the art world that you had no idea about prior to the internship.
