Published June 28, 2016 by Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Welcome to the 2016 Summer Education Assistants and Curatorial Fellows at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

left to right: Hailey Beaman ’18; Virginia Crow ’18; Michael Amano ’17; Estefanía “Steff” Chávez-Flores ’17; Catherine “Ellis” Price ’18; and William Schweller ’17. (Aleksia Silverman ’19 is not pictured)

left to right: Hailey Beaman ’18; Virginia Crow ’18; Michael Amano ’17; Estefanía “Steff” Chávez-Flores ’17; Catherine “Ellis” Price ’18; and William Schweller ’17. (Aleksia Silverman ’19 is not pictured)

The Museum is thrilled to welcome three Education Assistants, three Curatorial Fellows, and a Digitization Assistant this summer. They will be essential contributors to the Museum’s educational outreach and its ongoing digitization efforts. Several will also be conducting research in preparation for student-curated exhibitions that will open next fall.

The three Education Assistants are Hailey Beaman ’18, William Schweller ’17, and Estefanía (Steff) Chávez-Flores ’17. Hailey will be creating educational resources and programming for visitors throughout the summer, as well as working on digital and social media projects related to This Is a Portrait If I Say So. Hailey is an Art History and English double major.

Will is an Art History major and an Education Studies minor. Like Hailey, he will be leading tours and creating educational resources for various exhibitions this summer. Additionally, Will will assist curator Joachim Homann in researching works for an exhibition of the Museum’s drawing collection in 2017. This internship is made possible through the generosity of  the Esta and Hilton Kramer Fund.

Steff received a four-week Museum of Art Curatorial Fellowship during the month of June and will work as an Education Assistant at the Museum once her fellowship concludes. Steff’s fellowship will consist of self-directed research on a collection of vernacular photographs that will be featured in an exhibition that she will curate with co-director Frank Goodyear. Steff is currently working towards a double major in Art History and Government & Legal Studies.

Ellis Price ’18 is the Digitization Assistant at the Museum this summer. In this role Ellis will work with the registrar’s office to update the Museum’s database and online collections page and support exhibition installations. From Freeport, Maine, Ellis is an Art History major and Visual Arts minor. This internship is made possible through the generosity of an anonymous donor.

Aleksia Silverman ’19 is a rising sophomore. This summer, Aleksia will be developing a program that attaches a tiered system of key words to objects and images in the Museum’s database to improve the online “searchability” of works in the collection. Aleksia will be working with members of the Museum staff and Bowdoin’s Information and Technology Department to create this program. This internship is made possible through the generosity of John A. Gibbons Jr. ’64 and Lile R. Gibbons.

Michael Amano ’17 received a five-week Curatorial Fellowship for his project titled “Understanding Psychological Trauma through a Lens of Art Therapy in Hiroshima, Japan,” and Virginia Crow ’18 received a ten-week Curatorial Fellowship for her project titled “Hearing the Story First Hand.” Michael and Ginny’s fellowships are focused on an artistic exchange after WWII between children in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Hiroshima, Japan and the group of drawings that resulted from this communication. Michael and Ginny’s research will be incorporated into a student-curated exhibition of these children’s drawings next spring. Michael, who is currently working towards a Neuroscience and Asian Studies double major, will spend five weeks in Japan conducting interviews with some of the surviving artists. Ginny’s research will focus on the layers of storytelling in this artistic and cultural exchange. Ginny is an Asian Studies and Visual Arts double major. These internships are made possible through the generosity of Dr. Marc B. Garnick ’68 and Barbara Kates-Garnick.

The Museum is delighted to welcome these seven outstanding students this summer. We look forward to the many contributions and perspectives each student will bring as their projects progress during the coming weeks.