Each week the Brooklyn Museum Summer Interns participate in full-day educational programs that explore the roles of museums through on-site visits and field trips to other institutions around the city. Look out for our weekly posts where we’ll share what we’re doing and learning in the program.
Week 10: The Brooklyn Museum summer interns gathered for our final day of educational programming this Tuesday. We met up in Manhattan, a strange but fascinating land, in the plaza of Citigroup’s TriBeCa complex.
We convened there, accompanied by David Berliner, the Brooklyn Museum’s Chief Operating Officer, to hear from Citi representatives. The Citi Foundation has generously sponsored a cohort of interns at the Brooklyn Museum for two consecutive summers. The program strives to facilitate diversification in the arts field by offering paid summer opportunities to a growing number of participating museums.
We admired Citi’s space-craft of a building, which looked more like the realization of an architectural rendering than any space I have ever visited, as we made our way to the 39th floor. There we filed into a stunning meeting room with panoramic views of Manhattan’s downtown skyline. Our first guest was Vice Chairman of Citi, Ray McGuire. After recovering from the initial shock of his presence, my awe at Ray grew as we learned of his accomplishments in the art world. Our conversation with Ray centered the social role of museum spaces as responsive institutions and the rewards his personal involvement in the arts has brought into his life.
Next we heard from a panel of Citi employees intended to illuminate arts related career opportunities in for-profit contexts. The panelists included Suzanna Gyorgy, Managing Director of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory Services, Mary Kate O’Hare, Vice President of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory Services, Sarah Richardson, Global Head of Citi Center for Culture and Anuar Juraidini, Vice President of Citi Foundation. They spoke about curating in corporate and private settings and shared much appreciated career advice.
Lunch was a wild scene. Citi’s cafeteria is a wonderland. Voucher in hand, I ogled the bountiful options for so long I barely had time left to eat. In no time we were stepping out into the heat of downtown Manhattan, cramming into a train and setting off to Brooklyn.
Back home at the museum, we met Kristen Windmuller-Luna in One: Egúngún. Kristen serves the museum as Sills Family Consulting Curator of African Arts. She walked us through the careful installation of the Yorùbá masquerade dance costume and told us of her journeys to Nigeria where she connected with the garment’s original family. Upstairs in the boardroom, Kristen presented on the responsibilities of a curator and answered our various questions.
We then traveled downstairs to the Beaux-Arts Court to hear from a panel of interns-turned-museum employees. They shared their experiences shifting from interns to full time employees and, in theme with the day, their most valuable career advice.
In the transition period before our closing activity, the interns congregated in the small pool of sunlight spilling into the Beaux-Arts Court. We had reserved the boardroom for our final discussion, but the warmth of the sun-pocket compelled us to request a change of plans. Outside in the courtyard, we pulled two picnic tables together and began sharing our informal group presentations. Monica and Erika, our program advisers, had asked us to envision interventions in the Cane Acres house. We spoke about revising didactics and repurposing the space. Our final Tuesday of programming came to a bittersweet close. The organic friendship that arose among the interns, facilitated by these Tuesday sessions, has been one of the most valuable gifts from our summer at the museum. We were comforted by remembering it was not goodbye and that we had three more days of hallway encounters and impromptu lunches to share. I hope my fellow interns will be my coworkers one day soon.
