Meet Our 2022 Fall Interns

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Meet our fall 2022 interns, who have recently completed their internships. Applications for spring 2023 paid internships in the DEAI, HR, and Curatorial departments are now open!

Abby Osborne, George Washington University

“My name is Abby Osborne, and I’m a junior at George Washington University, majoring in art history and political communication. During this cycle, I’ve helped the Marketing and Communications department with community outreach, our business partnerships, and a press release about an upcoming exhibition. During my internship I enjoyed helping strengthen The Phillips Collection’s relationship with local businesses and creating strong partnerships that will benefit museum-goers. I also helped promote upcoming exhibitions and events throughout the community and updated the mailing lists, adding local university newspapers and Italian/Italian-American organizations that might be interested in the exhibition about Giuseppe De Nittis.”

Claire Griffin, George Washington University

“I am Claire Griffin and I am an intern in the DEAI department under Horning Chair for Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Yuma Tomes. I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in Museum Studies from George Washington University and will be starting my last semester in January. Additionally, I have a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with a minor in Sociology from Indiana University. Before joining the Phillips, I held positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Dumbarton House Museum, and Indiana University’s Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. Throughout my time here, I have had five major projects: Diversity in the Collection Project, Labor Acknowledgement Project, assistance with the Diversity Inter-Group Dialogue Series (DIDs) staff training session, writing an article for the next DEAI Staff Newsletter, and interviews with the department heads. I have been so grateful to learn more about DEAI work inside museums and looks forward to taking that knowledge with me throughout my career.”

Juliana Walsh, The Catholic University of America

“My name is Juliana and I have been the Community Engagement Intern. I have experienced tours given by Phillips Educators to grow my understanding of museum learning, as well as family programs that engage experiential learning. I spent a significant amount of time at our workshop at THEARC, where I helped The Phillips Collection win the best decorated car of THEARC partners at the annual Trunk & Treat event. I also supported some art-making workshops there. My main project this semester was research for the implementation of a mural-making summer camp at THEARC for students in Wards 7 and 8. This has been an absolute joy and I am very hopeful that the camp will become a reality, promoting initiatives of inclusivity and accessibility in historically underrepresented communities. I am so happy with all the work I did this semester and the great bonds that have been created between me and my department.”

Tina Fu, California State University Los Angeles

“My name is Tina Fu and I am an Education intern under Deputy Director for Education and Responsive Learning Spaces Anne Taylor Brittingham. I graduated from California State University Los Angeles this May with a BA in Art Education, which led me t interning at The Phillips Collection because I was interested in learning about art education beyond school classrooms. During my internship at the Phillips, I was able to be involved in different experiences and events, such as shadowing tours, interacting with visitors, creating lesson plans, helping set up events, and learning about the operations of a museum. I am very grateful for this opportunity which helped expand my understanding of art education.”

Leading The Phillips Collection Into Its Next Century

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Dorothy Kosinski, Vradenburg Director and CEO of The Phillips Collection, will conclude her tenure at the end of 2022. Following 15 years of distinguished leadership, she will be named Director Emerita. Here, Dorothy reflects on her time at the Phillips.

Dorothy Kosinski at the Phillips’s 100th Birthday Party, November 2021. Photo: Ryan Maxwell

How do you think the Phillips has changed over the last 15 years?
During my tenure, the museum has moved outside its walls—it has become more engaged with and responsive to our communities, to the art of our time, and to the urgent issues that confront our society today. This is probably most apparent in our satellite space at THEARC in Southeast DC. But it is also clear in our growing collection that embraces diverse voices from across our nation and the world. We tell stories from Kinshasa, Congo; from Sitka, Alaska; from New Delhi, India; from Harlem; and from Washington, DC. We tell a more complex and global story about modern and contemporary art. Additionally, the Phillips is engaged in constructive conversation about migration, climate degradation, art and wellness, the threat of war, and women in the arts. At the same time, we model the most serious scholarship and conservation inquiry about our 19th- and 20th-century holdings to continuously advance new knowledge and new perspectives on our historic core collection. Of course (and greatly accelerated since the pandemic), our museum races to stay in advance of the demands for technological portals and digital assets in order to achieve immediate, transparent, and in-depth access.

The Phillips is not isolated and our work reflects the enormous changes in the field. I think I will paraphrase my esteemed colleague Lonnie Bunch who said that the museum is not a community center but must be at the center of the community. That pretty much sums up the thrust and direction of this change. Additionally I will point to a book that just came out Change is Required: Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum containing my own essay (among 47 others) entitled “Purpose Is the Only Thing.” I think that, too, captures the essence of our efforts.

Workshop at Phillips@THEARC led by artist Janet Taylor-Pickett, February 2020

What makes the Phillips special?
The Phillips has a very precious and distinct character—intimate and accessible because of its domestic scale; personal and idiosyncratic because of its genesis as a private collection; deeply rooted in the immediate community and yet acknowledged globally for its expansiveness and excellence.

What are your hopes for the Phillips’s next century?
The Phillips was out ahead in its focus on issues of diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. My hope is that this work only deepens, and that these values continue to permeate and drive all of our work and initiatives across the museum as they do now. That is the responsibility of the next generation of leaders and trustees.

Installation view of Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century, featuring (left to right) Alfonso Ossorio, Excelsior (1960), Richard Pousette-Dart, Totemic Transcendental (1982), Aimé Mpane, Maman Calcule (2013), Photo: Lee Stalsworth

What exhibitions and programs are you most proud of?
It is so hard to choose a favorite exhibition. I think the exhibition that I co-curated with my dear colleague Dr. Klaus Ottmann on Jackson Pollock, Alfonso Ossorio, and Jean Dubuffet (2013) was groundbreaking in its scholarly framing of an artist who had been unknown and underappreciated for so long. More recently, the project conceived by my esteemed colleague Dr. Adrienne L. Childs, Riffs and Relations: African American Art and the European Modernist Tradition (2020), was visually and intellectually exhilarating in its presentation of a complex and multi-layered story. I am very proud of our annual Artists of Conscience series; that has been one of our primary platforms for exploring the tough and knotty ideas in the art world and society at large. Most importantly, it is the artists’ voice that we center. I am inspired by our Art and Wellness initiatives that bring us in meaningful and impactful dialogue with children, veterans, and older adults. Empathy and resilience are the values at the heart of this work.

What is your favorite work in the collection? A work that is not as well known?
That’s an impossible question for me! I adore Manet’s Spanish Ballet (1862). I also love Simone Leigh’s No Face (Crown Heights) (2018). A work you might not know? For that I’d choose Aaron Maier-Carretero’s Not In Front of the Kids (2020) that we purchased from our juried invitational exhibit during the Centennial.

What are your plans after the Phillips?
I plan to exhale! I serve on the boards of directors of two foundations as well as on the National Endowment for the Humanities National Council, so I am pretty busy as it is. I am in the midst of several conversations framing my role at other organizations that allow me to offer my knowledge and experience in impactful leadership. I am also investigating fellowships and residencies that will allow me to return to some long postponed as well as new curatorial and scholarly projects.

Today’s Ever-Changing World: Reimagining the School-Museum Partnership

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Hilary Katz, Head of Teaching & Learning, and Alexandra Laroche, Manager of School Partnerships, discuss The Phillips Collection’s dynamic school-museum partnerships. Read their full article for DC Project Zero.

In the post-pandemic world, The Phillips Collection has been revisioning what school-museum partnerships can look like. We are looking for ways to sustain the success and accessibility of virtual programs that can reach students and teachers across the country, as well as returning to the engagement of in-person learning.

Kindergarten students from Noyes Elementary School create torn-paper collage portraits during a Phillips field trip focusing on “Making Friends.”

Our virtual professional development workshops aim to provide concrete arts integration ideas for teachers to incorporate into their existing curricula. Teachers who participated in our most recent hybrid Summer Teacher Institute: The Meaning We Make reflected:

  • •   “This has shown me that art is accessible to all students, no matter age or ability.”
  • •   “I was able to take away tons of techniques and strategies that I can apply immediately to my teaching practice!”

We will continue to organize both virtual and in-person teacher workshops open to all educators.

Teachers participate in a hands-on artmaking workshop during the 2022 Summer Teacher Institute.

Building Long-Term Relationships

We’re eager to see students and teachers back in the galleries as well as in their classrooms. Beyond taking a single-visit field trip to the museum, we strive to create opportunities for long-term and sustainable relationships with teachers who participate in our courses and programs. Before the pandemic, our teacher programs and school partnerships functioned relatively separately. Now, teachers who participate in one of our professional development workshops are prioritized for becoming a school partner, resulting in more intentional and impactful collaborations.

Washington School for Girls students create prints in connection to Lou Stovall: The Museum Workshop. Their prints are currently featured in a student exhibition, Art + Music: More than a Feeling, at the Phillips, on view through early 2023.

Upcoming School Partnerships

For the 2022-23 school year, we have plans to partner with approximately 15 schools across DC, Maryland, and Virginia, in varying capacities, providing Art Kits and Art Cards (see below), facilitating museum visits, leading arts-integrated lessons in the classroom, offering teacher professional development, showcasing exhibitions of student artwork at the Phillips and THEARC, and more. Ultimately, we aim to create customizable, collaborative partnerships to expand students’ critical thinking about relevant topics, encourage students and teachers to consider new perspectives, and enhance traditional classroom learning.

Langley Elementary School teacher Brittany Root poses in front of her students’ lightbox artworks during our spring 2022 student exhibition. As part of their partnership this school year, Langley Elementary students will again be featured in our spring 2023 student exhibition.

Examples of what’s happening this school year:

  • •   In-person professional development workshop for a DCPS elementary school on integrating the arts into specific English-Language Arts units.
  • •   An exhibition at the Phillips will feature the work of over 300 students from three DMV-area schools, connecting curriculum goals to our special exhibitions.
  • •   Eight grade levels from a single school will visit the museum and participate in personalized, hands-on artmaking activities related to what they are learning in class.
  • •   Representatives from the Phillips are working with teachers from 4 grade levels at Inspired Teaching Demonstration School to design field trips, classroom visits by Phillips Educators, and artmaking activities that align to their upcoming units.
  • •   Multiple teacher workshops for DMV-area teachers, for specific schools, and as collaborations with other educator organizations.
  • •   Distribution of Phillips “Art Cards.” In our search to create engaging materials during the pandemic, we created these card decks to bring art into any lesson. They consist of 54 reproductions from works in our collection and are transferable to several games, allowing everyone’s ideas and opinions to create conversations surrounding artworks and different themes. A teacher who used the Art Cards commented that their students “have seen a more diverse selection of art than I am able to show in class.”

The Phillips Art Cards in Action

If you can’t make it to a workshop or a field trip, we have digital resources for educators to engage with the Phillips: