POSITION PURPOSE:
The Arts of Africa Fellow is intended to fill a need in the field of African arts that will provide curatorial experience, opportunities, and mentorship for individuals who seek a career as a museum curator specializing in African arts beyond that included in their academic training. The fellowship is a term of two years, with an option for a third year.
This fellowship will provide a unique opportunity for qualified candidates to build experience working in a large world art museum alongside seasoned curators. The program will afford fellows a well-rounded experience with mentoring supervision and professional collaboration with the Andrew W. Mellon Curator and interpretive specialist. During the first year, the selected fellow will work to research aspects of the permanent collection for the creation (writing/editing/design) of a companion guide to DAMs Arts of Africa collection. The first year is intended to expose the fellow to the internal operations of the museum and begin preparations for the publication. Additionally, the fellow will work directly with staff on donor relations, provenance research, and community building. The second year will continue these projects, develop other assigned tasks, and provide an opportunity for the fellow to develop approved research projects. The goal of this fellowship is the incremental incorporation of the fellow into departmental and museum-wide initiatives to provide deep, practical experience applicable to the field.
This fellowship will provide opportunities to develop experience in collection assessment, collection building, object provenance research, building community connections, donor cultivation, research, writing, editing, publication, and working closely with a specialist on interpretive plan and text for gallery rotations. The fellow will have opportunities to develop their own research project that relate to the museums collection of African art.
A fellowship at the DAM is designed to familiarize candidates with such curatorial responsibilities as exhibition development and display practices, collections-based research and publishing, museum administration, fundraising, and marketing and public relations. Moreover, the curatorial fellowship will expose the successful candidate to a broad range of professional experiences.
Please submit a one-page cover letter describing the reason for your application and interest in this opportunity and a curriculum vitae (CV) or professional resume.
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Research and planning for permanent gallery rotations.
- Writing and editing collections highlights online content.
- Research archival records.
- Attend curatorial meetings.
- Collection building and care for African art collections.
- Research collections.
- Assess collections for conservation and growth.
- Plan for and participate in visitor learning and engagement programs.
- Plan and support for events.
- Produce Blog posts, program descriptions, and content for press and marketing.
- Host and facilitate collection and archive research visits by scholars and artists.
- Participate in museum-wide teams and other museum or department tasks as assigned.
- Produce scholarly publications.
- Build community.
- Cultivate donors.
- Travel.
- Additional duties as assigned.
- Consistent usage of the Racial Equity Lens in day-to-day operations.
- Yearly goal setting to support Racial Equity Roadmap initiatives.
