My Summer as an Intern at the CAT

My name’s Filsan and this summer I became an intern at the CAT. I wanted to apply because I thought this would be a great experience for me to tap into my creative side and gain experience in a workplace. My workplace consisted of a bi-weekly rotation with 4 departments: Education, Curatorial, Collections, and Guest Services. In this blog I will be answering some questions given to me by these departments.

Education:

Describe what components go into an effective gallery learning experience. What can the gallery program leader do to encourage visitors to reflect and engage?

Components that go into a great tour and gallery experience and that tour leaders should start incorporating are: letting there be a moment of silence to help the group get accustomed to the piece, starting off with warm-up questions to begin a discussion about the art piece, and acknowledging everyone’s contribution to the discussion and encouraging other members to share. Music is also a great way to help members of your tour connect to the theme or art piece displayed. 

Curatorial:

What did you find the most rewarding learning about curation and museums? What did you find the most interesting when writing a wall label for an upcoming exhibition?

Something I found the most interesting while writing the wall label is how hard it is to describe and connect certain pieces together. It was hard writing a label for an exhibition that is not installed yet, but I managed to write a comparison of two artworks that will be included in that show. I think I made my point and themes clear which is something I found very rewarding. Something that was rewarding was visiting other museums and seeing how they are different than the CAT. We visited the Somali Museum and Mia. I really enjoyed seeing Somali art at both museums.

Guest Services:

What were some impactful visitor interactions you've witnessed? What interactions have you had with visitors that challenged you or inspired you?

I haven’t had many interactions with visitors because I don’t like bothering or disrupting the peace in tours, but an impactful visitor interaction was after a tour had just finished. An older man came up to me while we were gazing at Jin Jeong’s Monument Valley, and told me the waves and and flow of the painting reminded him of my hijab. Now everytime I look at the painting I think of that comment. 

Another interaction I had witnessed was when a group of people with disabilities came over to the CAT. During the tour we played music for them and a young lady had the biggest smile the whole time, and staff let us know they hadn’t seen her smile that much in a long time.

Collections:

What was one thing you learned about collection management in museums?

I didn’t know museums had to keep this many records. I helped organize over 100 object files for the artists Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová. 

In conclusion, my time at the CAT was extremely fun. I have learned so much about art and how museums operate, and I truly appreciate all the staff that worked with me and taught me what I know today.