- Talking about
- Cultural Institute internship
Stephanie is a joint honours History and English student, currently undertaking a year in industry placement at the Cultural Institute. She has a particular interest in heritage, archives and collections management in museums.
In 2018/19 she undertook a year-in-industry placement with the Cultural Institute. Through her internship, she supported colleagues with the Cultural Institute’s core programmes. Her tasks ranged from desk-based research and analysis that supports the development of new projects to briefing colleagues and professionals with information about the wider contexts of the creative and cultural industries. Steph also helped to coordinate, plan and execute numerous events such as Light Night 2018, research workshops, and a formal stakeholder dinner.
Steph also supported large ongoing projects like the Leeds Creative Labs, the collaboration DARE between the University and Opera North, the Ignite funding scheme and the Leeds Museums and Galleries Multi-Disciplinary fund. She had a number of administrative responsibilities such as record-keeping, attending meetings and producing materials for events, partner engagement and student opportunities as required.
Steph’s keen interest in history led to an ongoing placement with Leeds Museums and Galleries as part of her existing internship. Working primarily alongside Kat Baxter, curator of Archaeology, Steph spent time on the Egyptology, the medieval Kirkstall Abbey and the numismatics collections. She developed skills such as object-handling and analysis, conservation and exhibition planning, and Steph’s passion for medieval and classical history continued to grow with experience of working with professional curators.
She also developed some independent projects working with Special Collections and Opera North to create an archive collections policy. This will result in Opera North having a lasting archival legacy that can be employed by researchers, students and academics for years to come. Steph has also helped to create extra strands of communication for the Institute through developing a blog and various social media platforms.
After her internship, Stephanie hopes to finish her third year and then continue her academic career by undertaking a master’s course in medieval history or museum and gallery studies. She hopes that this will lead into a successful career in the museum and heritage sector.