BY AHLIA DUNN ’20 AND EMMA MARTIN ’20
Every summer, Mount Holyoke students go off into the real world for internships and experiences that will shape them for the rest of their lives. From jobs in banking and technology to counseling summer camp and working in local businesses, students come back to campus each fall more knowledgeable and accomplished.
Some of our MoHos venture into more artistic endeavors, however. Arts & Entertainment talked to some of these students about their summers and the work they did in their respective fields.
Photo courtesy of Anna Morris '20
Morris spent her summer at Aubin Pictures in New York
“This summer I interned at Aubin Pictures in New York City. Aubin is an organization that develops, produces, and distributes documentary films with a focus on social justice. I helped with a variety of tasks, including updating social media pages, designing graphics and website pages, transcribing interview footage and organizing archival files and photographs on a digital database. I also worked on a short film using archival footage from Aubin’s first film in 1996. The office was full of creative and fun energy — the company has a very small all-female staff (+ an office dog!) and is located in the director’s apartment loft in Manhattan. Navigating NYC was an incredible experience and I learned to love the liveliness and creativity of the city.”
— Anna Morris ’20
Photo courtesy of Julia Forsyth Sienkiewicz '20
Kaytlin Medley, frontwoman of Flying Jacobs, performs.
“By day I worked in a grocery store, but by night I was trekking up to Baltimore at least once a week to go to as many local shows as possible. For about half of the shows I went to, I took my camera, building up my concert photography portfolio. For my first “official” gig I ended up making a live music video as well as taking photos for the band Echoheart. The women in the Baltimore music scene tend to stick together, so one friend recommended me to multiple groups and helped get my name out there. What I like about photography in the music industry is that potential clients see the quality of my work before they see that I’m a woman, so I’m less likely to be dismissed outright.
By the end of the summer I’d done so much work for the sake of exposure that I got offered my first paid gig: going on tour with my friends to Tampa! Flying Jacob, the group I was with, played three gigs in 48 hours, one of which was on a syndicated radio show, and I’m so happy I was there to document it all. Now that I’m back, I’m hoping to expand my sights to the Pioneer Valley music scene and offer my services to talented musicians so they have more material to promote themselves!”
— Julia Forsyth Sienkiewicz ’20
Photo courtesy of Tori Gernett-Dott '20
Gernett-Dott worked as a curatorial intern at NCMA.
“I spent my summer at the North Carolina Museum of Art as a modern and contemporary art curatorial intern. My two supervisors were incredibly friendly and intelligent, and kept me very busy all summer. I conducted research, wrote blog posts for the public, attended curatorial department meetings and wrote acquisition proposals to help decide which new pieces the NCMA wanted for their collection. However, my most significant project this summer was creating my own exhibition exploring the theme of liminality in contemporary photography. I was given free reign over which pieces from the museum’s permanent collection to display, as well as how the artworks would be presented to the public. Since I was working at a large museum and their exhibition timeline requires years of preparation, my exhibition will go live around the spring of 2020, and I hope to return to the NCMA then to attend the opening of the exhibition.”
— Tori Gernert-Dott ’20