I was hired in spring 2017 to be an intern at the
Smithsonian. I work in the Freer|Sackler Museums of Asian Art. I am employed as
an intern of Visitor Experience, which is very similar to my job with the
History Department. The only difference is, I help hundreds of people a day
navigate their way not only around the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, but also
around the eleven other museums and galleries located on the National Mall and
the six other museums in the greater National Capital Area.
There are many aspects of Visitor Experience in a museum. As
an employee who manages the experience of visitors, most of my job is being in
the museum and observing our visitors. I do walkthroughs of our exhibits to
make sure our museum is presentable and clean for visitors. I work at the front
desk and talk to visitors and assist them with understanding the layout of our
museum. I study our exhibits and research the questions our visitors have about
any of our artifacts. I attend training on future exhibits, so that I am able
to give tours to visitors and answer questions. I also analyze data about visitors,
so my department can make decisions based on the research I compile.
When I first started working at the Sackler, my supervisor
suggested I walk around the museum and learn about our current exhibits, so I
could work at the desk and tell visitors what they could find in our gallery. My
favorite exhibit I learned about is our main exhibit, Inventing Utamaro, in which we reunite three of Kitagawa Utamaro’s
famous paintings—Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara,
Moon at Shinagawa, and Snow at Fukagawa. This is the first time in 140
years that these paintings have been seen hanging side by side. The third
painting in Utamaro’s triptych, Snow at Fukazawa
had actually been missing for about 70 years until it was rediscovered in Hakone,
Japan, in 2012. The Okada Museum of Art in Japan had the painting restored and
announced its return in 2014. The Okada Museum of Art has kindly lent their
piece to the Freer|Sackler Gallery for this exhibit. The Sackler Gallery has
also borrowed Cherry Blossoms at
Yoshiwara from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Connecticut. Charles
Lang Freer owns the Moon at Shinagawa,
which is displayed as the middle piece in this display. Freer requested that Moon at Shinagawa never leave the
Smithsonian. Because of his request, this will probably the only time in a long
that anyone will be able to see these paintings together.
Another experience I have found enjoyable is sitting in on
Docent Training. Our docents are the volunteers who give tours to visitors and
tourist groups. Once a week, curators will hold a 2-3 hour-long lecture where
they present to docents and other employees research and information about
their upcoming exhibits. The lectures will go over every artifact in the
exhibit, the reason it is being displayed, the history behind it, and the
layout of their exhibit.
This is just the first month of my internship— The Freer
Gallery of Art is closed currently for renovations. In less than two weeks, the
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will be closing for a three-month reinstallation.
When there are no more visitors, my job will change again. I know I will be assisting in the preparation
for our reopening weekend, but I do not know exactly what I will be doing. I
will update you at the end of July to let you know what happened!
