Criteria for Intern Candidates: The internship opportunities are intended for students from backgrounds underrepresented in museums and the visual arts professions, Applicants must be of a group underrepresented in museums and visual arts organizations, including, but not limited to individuals of African American, Asian, Latino/Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander descent. In addition, each intern must meet the following eligibility criteria:

1. currently enrolled full-time undergraduate (bachelor’s or associate degree program) and have completed at least one semester or 2 quarters of college by June 2023. Students who graduated the semester or quarter immediately before the internship begins are also eligible.
2. and must be a resident or attend college in Los Angeles County;
3. and must be a US citizen or permanent resident eligible to be legally employed in the US. Students with DACA status valid through the internship period are also eligible.

Please note that students who have previously served as Getty Marrow Undergraduate Interns at the Japanese American National Museum are not eligible for consideration. Students enrolled in a second BA or BS program are not eligible. Finally, staff members and relatives of staff or board members are not eligible.

Intern Stipend:  $6,800 gross stipend for Full-Time (40 hours/week),10 consecutive weeks.

Dates of Internship: 10 consecutive weeks, in-person, between June – August 2023. Full-Time (40 hours a week).  Require some evening & weekend hours. Selected Intern is required to be up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations with bivalent booster (Fall 2022) dose.

The Media Arts and Exhibitions & Audience Engagement Interns work a Tuesday thru Saturday schedule from 6/13/23 thru 8/19/23.

The Collections & Curatorial Intern works Monday thru Friday schedule from 6/12/23 thru 8/18/23,

The mission of the Japanese American National Museum it to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. The Japanese American National Museum is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to sharing the experience of Americans of Japanese ancestry.  JANM has the following three (3) Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship vacancies for Summer 2023:

Getty Marrow Media Arts Intern:

The Media Arts Intern will work in the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center (MAC), which is dedicated to furthering JANM’s mission through unique documentaries, innovative exhibition components, and video life histories that preserve and share the Japanese American experience. They will participate in the creation of media components for the museum's upcoming films & exhibitions (70% time), educational/public programs (15% time), and website, social media, and YouTube channel (15% time).

Through the internship, the Media Arts intern will receive hands-on experience with preproduction development, cameras, sound, lighting, livestreaming, editing software, motion graphics, and archival media formats to help facilitate their own capstone project.  To develop these skills, the intern will assist on three upcoming exhibitions and an upcoming documentary film:

1. Reimagined Core Story: JANM’s redesigned main exhibit looking at Japanese American history from immigration to today will feature many new media components, including installation pieces tied to specific artifacts, videos of modern day solidarity and protest, and short documentaries focused on cross generational stories.
2. Eating Together: Food in Japanese America: This exhibit will look at Japanese American’s long history with food, in California especially.  Possible media components will dive into prewar agriculture, fishing, food during wartime incarceration, and their connections to the farms, restaurants, and traditions of today.
3. Nikkei Car Culture: This exhibit explores the impact Japanese Americans had on the Southern California car scene, from box car racing and car clubs in the fifties, to the rise of import/tuner culture in the eighties and nineties, to the reappreciation of Japanese classic cars today.  The media components will include interviews with car aficionados from multiple decades, footage of classic car shows, and archival racing footage.
4. Nobuko Miyamoto: An hour long documentary in partnership with KCET, profiling LA artist and activist Nobuko Miyamoto. Nobuko’s career has spanned multiple decades, from dancing on Broadway, singing in the civil rights and anti-war movement, to community activism and solidarity work today.  She continues to write and perform, including a concert at the Getty Center in February 2022.

For all of these projects, the intern will assist in conducting research and interviews, scouting and shooting B-roll footage, transcription, logging clips, digitization of archival materials, and editing, all of which will significantly contribute to the final pieces.

Media Arts Intern Requirements: Video editing experience (using Final Cut Pro X and/or Premiere Pro) and experience with video cameras is strongly recommended. Competency in digitization/digital asset management, including scanning and editing photographs in Photoshop is desired. Strong research and written communication skills are critical. Attention to detail and strong organizational skills are essential.

Getty Marrow Collections and Curatorial Intern:

The Getty MUI Collections and Curatorial intern will delve into the various processes inherent to collections and curatorial work at JANM by cataloging, digitizing, and curating hundreds of acetate and glass plate negatives, photographic prints, scrapbooks, 16 mm home movies, documents, and ephemera that comprise the Tanaka Studios collection. All of this work will culminate in a capstone project that the Collections and Curatorial intern will design to make the Tanaka collection relatable and accessible to a broad audience.

This collection, donated by the Tanaka family in several different groupings between 2007 and 2022, includes hundreds of negatives that Chikashi Tanaka (1888 - 1977), the proprietor of Tanaka Photo Studio in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo, created from the portraits and photographs he captured in his studio and on location for clients. The studio was located on East First Street in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo neighborhood. The original negatives, which range from 3x5” to 8x10,” capture everyday as well as extraordinary pre-war moments in Japanese American life in Little Tokyo and the greater Los Angeles area. Tanaka took portraits of many different families, individuals, and community groups, which capture the vibrancy of the Japanese American community in the greater Los Angeles region prior to World War II. Tanaka photographed weddings, funerals, recitals and Japanese cultural activities and businesses for clients. Many of these negatives are housed in the original glassine enclosures that include handwritten dates, client names and sometimes location, which adds to the value of the photographic material.  Additionally, he also captured varied landscapes throughout California and the American West, as part of personal travel in the 1930s.
 

In order to process this collection and make it accessible to the public, the collections and curatorial intern will assign accession numbers, catalog the objects in TMS (collections management database), work with the digitization specialist on staff to digitize the negatives, research the historical context around the collection and relevant themes that the materials represent, create a finding aid for the collection for the Online Archive of California, and develop written context for inclusion on JANM’s various public-facing platforms.

Additionally, the negatives in this collection, along with existing materials in the collection will help the intern to develop a capstone project. While the Collections Management and Access and Curatorial departments at JANM are prioritizing work to make more of the permanent collection available through eMuseum, an online platform to display catalog information, a creative capstone project to share these collections with the public--highlighting the intern’s skillsets, talents, and interests--is required. The intern will determine an effective way to share this collection with a broad audience as a final capstone project, which could entail: an online exhibition through eMuseum, a zine, a series of blog posts, a short documentary, or another creative form.

Collections & Curatorial Intern Requirements: Competency in digitization/digital asset management, including scanning, photography, editing photographs in Adobe Photoshop is desired. Experience handling, cataloging, and rehousing archival and 3D artifacts is preferred, but not required. Familiarity with TMS or a collections management database is ideal, but not essential. Strong research and written communication skills are critical. Attention to detail and strong organizational skills are also essential.

Getty Marrow Exhibition and Audience Engagement Intern:

The Exhibitions and Audience Engagement (EAE) Intern will work closely with the Vice President of Exhibitions and Art Director and will focus on supporting the upcoming revision of our Core Exhibition Being and Becoming (working title). The Japanese American National Museum is reimagining the permanent exhibition that introduces visitors to the 150 years of the Japanese American experience. Using artifacts, graphics, text, video, audio, and interactive displays, both in-person and on-line, the exhibition will make relevant the many intersections the Japanese American experience has to similar experiences of other immigrant communities. The exhibition will encourage visitors to explore the ever evolving and multi-racial American story.

The EAE intern will work with the VP of Exhibitions to develop and test a number of exhibition concepts and hands-on interactives that will be central to the interpretation of this exhibition that is being designed by Ralph Appelbaum and Associates.  The EAE intern will assist with the intro to the new exhibition by researching and developing an orientation to the overall audience engagement and visitor outcomes. 

Exhibition and Audience Engagement Intern Requirements: Strong research and written communication skills are essential. Strong attention to detail and highly organized. Strong design skills in Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator). Experience with graphic design and typography. Experience with gallery installations, Slitter/Cutter/Creasers, and Digital Printing  Press desired but not required. Interest in learning about working as an arts professional in a nonprofit.

APPLICATIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY: 5:00pm, Friday, April 14, 2023.

To apply submit your cover letter, employment application form, resume, and 2 letters of recommendation. Candidates selected for interview will also need to provide 1 copy of an official undergraduate transcript(s). Transcripts must record at least one semester or 2 quarters of college by June 2023.

Employment Application forms are available at https://www.janm.org/jobs/apply-internships

Submit application packets to:

Japanese American National Museum

Attn: Human Resources

Re: Getty Marrow Summer Internship (Specify Internship Opportunity)

100 N. Central Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Email to: hr@janm.org (a word.doc format or pdf file)

Finalists will be contacted for interviews the week after the application deadline.

Selected Intern will be provided a link to upload a copy of their COVID-19 vaccination and bivalent booster proof.

NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE