Project: Collection Education and Research Center
Public Outreach/Research and Exhibition Fellowship
Research Area Expertise Sought: including but not limited to decolonial and critical theory, religious studies, pre-modern history, education, film studies, global studies, and/or the art and visual/material culture of the Global South.
This is a co-curricular research fellowship opportunity open to doctoral students in good standing at Michigan State University
Dates: Spring/Summer 2023 (approx. April 1–August 15, 2023)
Work Hours: 10hrs/week, Flexible
Work Environment: Virtual and In-Person
Credits Bearing: No
Fellowship Stipend: TBD, Depending on Scope of Work
About the Fellowship
The MSU Broad Art Museum is seeking graduate fellows to assist in the research and organization of the new Collection Education and Research Center (exact naming to be confirmed at a later date), which isscheduled to open on November 11, 2023. The Collection Education and Research Center is a publicly accessible space that allows audiences to experience works from the museum’s collection—a permanent dedicated space to visit the collection in perpetuity. To date, the museum has never had a dedicated space to permanently display its collection, making this new space an important endeavor towards making our collection more accessible for object-based learning opportunities and other forms of engagement. The collection includes more than 10,000 objects acquired over a nearly eighty-year period, and that spans different geographies, cultures, and time periods. A selection of works representative of the many histories and lived experiences as present within our collection will be presented in an effort to reconsider canonical narratives in art history and acknowledge the gaps and historical blind spots in our collection. Emphasis will be placed on artists, artistic practices, and cultures that have historically excluded or under-represented, drawing specific attention to the artworks and stories of women and people of color.
Exhibition description:
The new Collection Education and Research Center will be designed to generate new knowledge and ways of understanding global art history through a community-engaged approach that explores the intersections between different cultures and their visual and material cultural production. We aim to do this by drawing together the knowledge and lived experiences of many stakeholders and audiences: faculty, staff, students, researchers, and community members from the Greater Lansing region. We invite visitors to engage in a dialogue through questions like: What narratives does our collection uphold or overlook? How can we generate a more inclusive, diverse, and transcultural narrative about art history? And how can a collection education center offer a public-facing, community-engaged conduit for exploring these questions? Rather than providing definitive answers, we aim to promote cross-cultural dialogue about how disparities in art history, including in our own collection, reflect social histories and current issues.
Fellowship description:
The graduate fellows will work closely with the exhibition curators and the museum’s education team to create interactive and interpretative content in support of the center; depending on the candidate’s interests and previous experience, this may include:
- researching artworks
- producing multimodal interpretative materials (such as video interviews, visual essays, brochure content, etc.)
- developing self-guided tour strategies
- designing and implementing a public program
- contributing to the overall conceptualization of the space
We are seeking graduate students with research focuses and expertise in (but not limited to) decolonial and critical theory, religious studies, pre-modern history, education, film studies, global studies, and/or the art and visual/material culture of the Global South. This very broad range of research corresponds to the breadth of the MSU Broad Art Museum’s collection and the artworks that may be on view in the exhibition. In consultation with the exhibition curators and the museum’s educators, graduate fellows will have the opportunity to identify a project that supports the interpretation of specific artworks or thematic sections within the exhibition, and that creates new strategies for engagement with the collection and the center. This work will primarily be conducted independently, but there will be regular virtual team meetings to share research and exhibition/project updates, with additional in-person and museum visits as appropriate.
How to Apply:
These fellowships will begin April 1, 2023, and continue through the summer at MSU in advance of the center’s opening on November 11, 2023. We expect all work related to the fellowship to be complete no later than August 15, 2023. Interested applicants should submit the following materials to Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Steven L. Bridges (sbridges@msu.edu) and Assistant Curator Rachel Winter (winterr6@msu.edu) by 11:59PM on Friday, February 17, 2023. Late submissions will not be reviewed. Applications should consist of the following components:
- One page statement describing applicant’s interest in project, area of expertise/study, and potential contribution
- CV/resume, including reference contact information
- A short (no longer than one page) writing sample
Any questions about the fellowship can be directed to Assistant Curator Rachel Winter at winterr6@msu.edu.