SAMA x Liberal Arts and Sciences - Internship Experience

Moryz here again! In my introduction post I gave a breakdown of what my tasks and responsibilities would be during my one-month internship with SAMA, and in the recent VR-centric post I explained in more detail what that specific component actually entailed. Yet, I thought that as my stay comes to an end, it might be interesting to know in a bit more detail what exactly I am up to on a given day, and generally what working for SAMA means as student from AUC.

So, to give a sneak peak into what my internship has been like, what follows is a diary-style breakdown of Week 4 (the last one) where I explain everything that went on in this busy, busy period, with just enough detail to paint an accurate picture without boring you. Let's go!

Monday: Hard Disk Archival Uploads

The week begins with one straightforward but time consuming task: combing through the main SAMA Hard Disk Drive and uploading from there onto the DSAD footage of the 30 chosen artworks over the years. This usually includes batches of images detailing the creation of a piece (so Day 1, Day 2, etc...) and then subsequent visits with a high quality camera (sometimes this will be in a folder with the title 2016 footage, for example, and other times I have to manually identify and group them as I go through). Then, as I wait for 150 images to upload for one artwork, there's no time to just sit around: I'm already finding and grouping batches for the next two!

This archiving process is perhaps the most important thing I'm doing at SAMA, and so dedicating the entire Monday to it comes as no surprise. Bringing together all these different records (from the physical collection, to the online website links, and the digital content on both Google Drive and these Hard Disks) demands patience, focus, and critical decision-making to ensure both an efficient but complete/well-organized transfer of the materials onto the DSAD.

As a history and culture student, getting experience with archival work is invaluable, and from the interdisciplinary liberal arts perspective, bringing both the art works themselves and their social context into a digital mixed-media, mixed-methods archive was an intriguing opportunity. Also for my ventures into urban anthropology and sociology, learning about the complex realities that produce street art was an informal case study of sorts, since I am now familiar with the world of Nieuw-West and its street art(efacts).

Tuesday: Tour with Media College, last physical scans, and more VR testing

After Monday's repetitive but rather calm schedule, Tuesday started off with some action: we met two groups of students from nearby Mediacollege Amsterdam and went on a condensed version of the SAMA Walking Tour, where Anna made sure our visitors would leave with a striking impression of what "street art" really is. These students are tasked with creating their own outdoor short films (intended as companion pieces or visual representations of selected poems) and saw our collection as an inspiring source: we hope their projects will reflect this, and look forward to seeing more street art content being put out into the world.

Back at the main office, I of course return to my archiving duties; right now, that means finishing the last few physical scans, to bring all of SAMA's physical traces for the 30 selected artworks into digital form, and later on onto the DSAD. As I allude to in the Instagram post on this topic, we pick up new content that involves SAMA or the collection almost every day. For example, we got a nice envelope from Het Parool this morning with an express copy of the new issue, including an exclusive interview with our very own Anna Stolyarova!

Lastly, I of course continue to meet and greet the daily visitors and invite those who are interested to be test subjects for the VR memory capsule. As it relies on random encounters, this task does tend to spontaneously interrupt my others, and take time out of my planned daily schedule. However, it's a key component of the DSAD project, and so we adapt; working with what the world throws at you, not against it, might be a prosaic way to describe what culture-sector work requires, and that is a vital lesson I am taking away from this internship.

Wednesday: Lots of special visitors, and of course, more archiving

Right in the middle of the week we find what might be one of the busiest days yet during my whole internship. The reason? Three sets of special visitors were scheduled to make a stop at SAMA, and with our dear Anna still at home fighting a nasty flu, it was up to me to show them around, make a good first impression of the museum, and facilitate online meetings with Anna for each of them, all while keeping a tight schedule and continuing to retrieve archival material (this time from SAMA's regular camera roll on Google Photos). Meanwhile, I also received a lot of tourists on this particular day, which added extra distractions and extra social effort, but nonetheless we kept going.

The first visitor was a fellow intern: Sam den Baal who came on the behalf of MOK, a new public art museum that operates in a similar small-scale and non-commercial fashion as SAMA. After giving him a condensed version of the SAMA walking tour (wherein I explained to the best of my abilities what SAMA is all about, and we discussed how our museums may relate to each other), Anna gave him a preliminary consultation on establishing and registering an art collection in public space. The results seemed quite productive, and I believe we all left having learned new things about each other's initiatives.

Next up, it was actually two of my fellow Amsterdam University College students who were working on a project about graffiti and street art, seeking out Anna for an interview to hear from an expert (and hear they did). While I had never met them - as they are 1st year students and I am a 3rd year - rapport with them was relatively easy compared to other visitors, given we are attending the same programme and thus share the same academic perspectives/values. After the interview, I helped them with some further questions and oversaw their brief look into some of SAMA's collected books on street art.

Last of all, a prospective intern Adam came to the office for an interview and was lucky enough to also score an internship with SAMA for one week. He will be taking over some of my duties after I go, and I wish him the best of luck with this. I'm sure he'll have a great time here, as I did.

Thursday: Very last archiving, and preparing for Friday

After Wednesday's packed schedule, Thursday was more of a wrap-up. I did the very last archival work retrieving the footage that was left to go through on Google Photos, finished the uploads, sorted out some filing and made sure there were no loose ends in any of my DSAD tasks, while also doing key prep for Friday: charging all of our VR headsets, changing controller batteries, getting familiar with the high quality camera I would be using on Friday, setting out some of Smile's physical media for Anna to bring to Stadscuratorium's event the following evening, and making sure everything was working properly.

It was a lonely (but sunny) last day at the office, with barely any tourists walking by and none of the team there in person, but honestly I appreciated the calm before Friday's grand finale. What a relief to have managed to finish the important things on time. Its been a great 3 weeks at the SAMA office; now Friday is going to be a field day!

Friday: TeamBlazin footage and Stadscuratorium event

My last day with SAMA was possibly the most exciting one yet. And that's because I was sent out with a super cool mission: filming the amazing TeamBlazin at work in Uithoorn, as they craftfully adorn interior walls across 5 floors of a social housing building. Compared to many of the artworks of SAMA and those I've been scanning the archive for this is a much more small-scale project, but often in life it is the small things that can make the biggest difference; in this case, the more minimal color choices paired with simple, inspiring messages that repeat in a smooth pattern are sure to give this bland stairwell a unique touch, without coming off as abrasive or demanding attention. The filming was super chill, and it was really satisfying to see a street artist at work after spending four weeks reading about them and seeing only pictures of the creation process.

Later that evening, the culmination of my SAMA work manifested itself in the form of advertising and testing out the VR memory capsule on a stream of attendees at Stadscuratorium's "Stad als canvas?" city dialogue event at Pakhuis de Zwijger. With an extra pair of helping hands - the lovely @cika.annemae and @kawagra030 - I was able to showcase this innovative component of the DSAD to a host of both public figures and already interested in street art. Listening to various panels from the special guests was interesting and felt like a large-scale experience that gave me a glimpse into the "official" world of how street art is dealt with and thought about by prominent artists, political figures, and cultural experts from Amsterdam and beyond. Also, seeing some of SAMA's works on the big screen at this event was again, a next of level of inspiring.

Final Reflection

As you can see, there's always plenty going on at SAMA, keeping me and the rest of the team busy with long-term projects, one-time events, and even completely unexpected opportunities. So, what has doing an internship at SAMA meant for me as a liberal arts and sciences student? Well for starters, seeing the inside workings of a small-scale cultural organisation (which already a sort of hybrid combining art and heritage with social work and even tech innovation) was an unparalleled chance for me to learn what is possible when you apply a critical, ethical, and flexible mindset to a real-world context.

Additionally, understanding and participating in the process of how SAMA manages to collect, allocate and create new content - which involves constantly revisiting and expanding on existing material, and a great variety of collection strategies including physical documentation, deep online research, and even the VR scan in the capsule - allowed me to gain mountains of unique knowledge and a skillset that can be valuable in any humanities or social sciences oriented career I could find myself in.

Lastly, being part of SAMA's team and doing all the general museum operations was a brilliant way to get experience in many roles; especially on the days were Anna was unable to come in due to the flu, I had to practically manage the museum in-person for a week, a large responsibility which paid off big time. My communication skills, my technical skills, my research skills, and most of all my confidence have grown immensely during my short time here; I truly feel motivated and better prepared for post-Bachelor's life, and I think that's a note to end off on. A huge thank you to Anna for allowing me to contribute my energies here for a month, and thank you to everyone else involved at SAMA who welcomed me so warmly and made me feel like a valued member. Goodbye Street Art Museum Amsterdam! It's been a pleasure :)

- Moryz Haupt