2019-2020 Interns
Erin Monique Grant
2019-2020 Anne Ray Intern
Erin Monique Grant is a Hopi member of the Colorado River Indian Tribes from Parker, Arizona, and is a recent graduate of the New School in New York, where she received a master’s degree in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies. Throughout her graduate program, Grant focused on the study of Indigenous objects of the Southwest and their accompanying histories. In particular, she studied Indigenous ceramics and silver. She comes to SAR’s internship program with several years of education and museum experience—most recently, she was the history exhibits intern at the New York Historical Society. She has also previously held positions at the American Federation of Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
During her time on campus, Grant is interested in learning more about the significance of community collaboration and outreach through the programs at the IARC. She looks forward to working at a Native-focused institution and having the opportunity to work with other Indigenous scholars and mentors. She is also considering pursuing a PhD in History and hopes to build upon her provenance and art historical research through this internship experience.
During her tenure at SAR, Grant will spend half of her time working on collections/registration projects and the other half working on academic/programming projects. She will be in residence at SAR from September 1, 2019-May 31, 2020.
Amanda Sorensen
2019-2020 Anne Ray Intern
Amanda Sorensen comes to SAR and the IARC as a recent graduate of the Anthropology program at University of British Columbia (UBC). During her time at UBC, where her concentration was in Museum Studies, Sorensen completed a thesis that centered on interviews with curators and Indigenous students regarding an exhibit at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology. Through her thesis, she hoped to foster a continued dialogue between curators and Indigenous audiences about the interpretation of Indigenous collections. Sorensen has previously held positons at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, the National Museum of Natural History’s Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology, Loyola University Chicago, and the Field Museum.
While working with the IARC staff, Sorenson hopes to gain experience that will support her pursuit of a career that bridges academia and applied museum practice. She comments, “…museums can be places of public engagement not restricted to visitor tours and object research in storage facilities. Public engagement with collections can also include Indigenous artists and community members practicing cultural protocols and contributing to discussions on object meanings. I want to continue experiencing how collections spaces can foster a dialogic, decolonizing atmosphere and IARC supports this kind of collaborative, academic environment.” She is also looking forward to expanding her material culture research and scholarship on Indigenous Studies and Art History.
During her tenure at SAR, Sorensen will spend half of her time working on collections/registration projects and the other half working on academic/programming projects. She will be in residence at SAR from September 1, 2019-May 31, 2020.
Amanda Sorensen, Anne Ray Intern 2019-2020
Photo courtesy of Amanda Sorensen
COLLOQUIUM
Livestream Colloquium: 2019-2020 Anne Ray Interns
May 6, 2020 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm. Join us online via YouTube. (simply head to sarsf.info/youtube at the start of the event to see the presentations). 2019-2020 Anne Ray Interns, Erin Monique Grant and Amanda Sorensen present on the research they have been working on while in residence at SAR. Erin Monique Grant will speak on “Pueblo Pottery from the Vilcek Collection” while Amanda Sorensen will present on “Material Transformations: Cataloguing the Blanket Leggings at NMNH.” For more information, click here.