Tag Archives: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (HART 316)

Instructors: Prof. Monique Scott & Prof. Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Course Description:

Students in the Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar, now in its 4th year, typically do their fieldwork in Philadelphia museums or in BMC Special Collections. This year, they are all worked with the Communications and Marketing Department of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, at the invitation of the museum. The seminar provided students a forum in which to ground, frame, and discuss their internship work with the museum. Students worked in three work teams with seven AAM staff members, who visited the seminar on Zoom at the start of the semester, to orient students to the projects and at the end of the semester to reflect on the experience and provide feedback.

The Learning Goals:

  • To connect theories of Museum Studies and scholarship in History of Art with professional museum practice
  • To gain knowledge about some of the fundamentals of Museum Studies—including the history of museums, the role of museum in society, current trends in museums, museum ethics and about the variety of museum professions

One important outcome of the seminar is the development of a new partnership between the Asian Art Museum and Bryn Mawr College. Two students in the class will continue working with the museum through summer internships.

Peyton Moriarty, History, BMC ’21

Student in Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (HART316)

Instructors: Prof. Monique Scott & Prof. Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Field Supervisor: Yael Eytan

Fieldwork Description:

This semester, Anna Shuff and I worked remotely as Metrics Interns under Yael Eytan, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. “Metrics” centers on the data surrounding the ways in which the public engages with the museum; our contributions largely involved examination of visitor engagement through social media and testimonials. Our primary project was to gather visitor digital engagement data, to be compiled into a new statistics ‘dashboard’ that reports on online interactions with the museum. Not only does this consolidate the museum’s most essential and relevant data, but it will be a valuable resource for the rest of the museum’s employees, who will not require familiarity with the data methods in order to absorb the dashboard’s contents at a glance. Our other major project for the semester was to gather positive testimonials about the museum. Anna and I canvassed a variety of sites that gave feedback about the museum experience. This included review sites, like TripAdvisor and Google Reviews, press releases, as well as surveys that the museum had run with its visitors and members. These quotes, emphasizing the museum as a site for education, peaceful contemplation, and fun for the family, will be used in future advertisements.

 

Praxis Presentation:

Praxis-Final-Project-Moriarty

Please click here to access a PDF version of the presentation.

Maeve Donnelly, History & History of Art, BMC ’21

Student in Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (HART316)

Instructors: Prof. Monique Scott & Prof. Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Field Supervisor: Clothilde Schmidt O’Hare

Fieldwork Description:

For my fieldwork at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum I worked in the Marketing and Digital Engagement Department. The marketing and digital engagement department of the SFAAM works to promote the museum and its exhibitions through social media campaigns. They analyse the public’s interaction with social media and how these reactions interact with the museum and provide insight on what is popular at the museum and what might need more promotion or attention. Our main project was creating an Instagram campaign, detailing one of the new exhibits at the museum, my specific exhibition being Memento: Jayashree Chakravarty and Lam Tung Pang. Through this internship I was able to see the museum through the eyes of the consumer/ visitor and promote the museum to the public, taking into consideration both the interaction of the viewer and the attributes of the museum from the inside. I learned that there is more to marketing and digital engagement than just social media posts and was able to see the interaction between the marketing and digital engagement department and various other departments throughout the museum.

Praxis Presentation:

PraxisBlog Maeve Donnelly_red

Please click here to access a PDF version of the presentation.

Lucia Wang, History of Art, BMC ’22

Student in Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (HART316)

Instructors: Prof. Monique Scott & Prof. Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Field Supervisor: Clothilde Schmidt O’Hare

Fieldwork Description:

This spring semester, I work as an intern at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s Marketing & Communications department. During this internship, I initiate a comparative analysis between the Freer Gallery and Mutter Museum, predominately concentrating on digital audience engagement, plans after re-opening, and advertising campaigns for new exhibitions. With the assistance of Zac, I interviewed the Digital Audience Analyst at the Freer Gallery. He provided me a deeper insight into their current programs that vastly enriched my analysis. I also support Mira in creating video content for 4 virtual programs by gathering about 40 object assets in DAMS.

Praxis Presentation:

Please click here or on the image below to watch Lucia’s presentation.

 

Christina Altman, Art History and Fine Arts Major, BMC ’22

Student in Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (HART316)

Instructors: Prof. Monique Scott & Prof. Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Field Supervisor: Clothilde O’Hare and Alisa Wong

Fieldwork Description:

I worked at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco as a remote intern for Marketing and Digital Engagement. During this internship, I was tasked with creating content for the museum’s social media sites, updating website pages, and took part in meetings and workshops with members of the Marketing and Communications department. In particular, I was in charge of creating a series of Instagram Stories for one of the museum’s newer exhibitions After Hope: Videos of Resistance. I also wrote copies and suggested images for three Instagram posts for holidays in May. I updated the Yelp page, monitoring reviews and questions, and suggested new images for both the Yelp page and the museum’s new social media header on their home website. With the rest of my team, we also updated the Welcome Email for the email newsletter. I learned through this internship how important collaboration is within Marketing and Communications, as well as clearly defined messages for digital engagement. To demonstrate this, I made a zine to explain my projects.

Praxis Presentation (Zine):

Christina Altman Internship Zine Final_red

Please click here to access PDF version of the file.

Anna Shuff, Literatures in English, BMC ’22

Student in Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (HART316)

Instructors: Prof. Monique Scott & Prof. Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Field Supervisor: Yael Eytan

Fieldwork Description:

The Museum Studies Fieldwork course aims to give students firsthand experience in museum work, an integral part of museum studies. This year, the course was carried out in conjunction with the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, where the students undertook internships with the museum’s Marketing and Communications department. My internship focused on metrics, collecting and organizing important museum data and statistics.

Praxis Presentation:

Please click here or on the image below to watch Anna’s presentation.

Please click here to access a PDF version of the presentation.

Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar (Prof. Scott and Prof. Houghteling)

Course Description:

This course provides students a forum in which to ground, frame and discuss their hands-on work in museums, galleries, archives or collections.  Whether students have arranged an internship at a local institution or in the Bryn Mawr College Collections, this course provides a framework for these endeavors, coupling praxis with theory supported by readings from the discipline of Museum Studies.

The learning goals for the course are:

  • To connect Museum Studies theory and practice
  • To connect internships in museum, archives or galleries to students’ individual interests and career goals
  • To gain knowledge about some of the fundamentals of Museum Studies—including the history of museums, the role of museum in society, current trends in museums, museum ethics and about the variety of museum professions