Author Archives: Experiment Station

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.”

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:

Fellow Spotlight: Rebecca Shipman

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Meet our 2022-23 Fellows. As part of our institutional values and commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, the fellowship program is a comprehensive, yearlong paid program that includes hands-on experience, mentoring, and professional development. 

Rebecca Shipman is the Terra Curatorial Fellow, and will assist with research funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art dedicated to the recontextualization of the Phillips’s collection. Research will consider new perspectives, untold stories, and make connections between the artwork and history of The Phillips Collection and Howard University Gallery of Art.

Rebecca Shipman is currently a senior Art History Major, History Minor at Howard University. She has worked with organizations who seek to support social justice through the creation and displaying of art, locally with the Justice Art Coalition. Rebecca also works at the Moorland Spingarn Research Center and closely with the Howard University Gallery where she works caring for artifacts and preparing exhibits.

Rebecca Shipman, Howard University

Why are you interested in working at a museum?

I view museums as houses of conversation, a way to inject primary evidence into a society that has been largely miseducated about the most important factors which shape present time. I find real power in understanding what came before us, and the Phillips has always been one of my favorite institutions because of its ability to electrify their exhibits.

What brought you to The Phillips Collection?

From the beauty of the space to their innovative programming, I’m always looking for ways to spend more time at The Phillips Collection, so I am thrilled to be the 2022-23 Terra Fellow. As the Terra Fellow I will be working with Assistant Curator Camille Brown and Adjunct Curator Dr. Adrienne Childs to re-contextualize pieces in the collection which have been under-studied or under-displayed. The result will be a kind of follow up to the Phillips’s 2014 Made in the USA exhibition.

Please tell us about the projects that you will be working on during your fellowship. What do you hope to accomplish during your fellowship?

I hope to end my Fellowship with a better understanding of the business side of a museum, a way to pinpoint and hopefully avoid the factors which play into the homogeny of artworks in a museum, and I am already having great fun spending time with the artists’ work and learning more about them.

What is your favorite painting here?

Though Sam Gilliam is not one of the artists I am researching Red Petals,  1967, is one of my favorite pieces in the collection.

What is a fun fact about you?

A fun fact about me is that I knit, if anyone has great patterns I’d love to share.