This year I did two different internships: one of one month in London at Oxfam and the other one, a three-month part time internship at Enjoy Art Gallery. 

The internship at Oxfam

What is Oxfam?

Oxfam is an organization originally from Great Britain, acting worldwide to find solutions to poverty and injustice.

They have three main points of focus: development work, which tries to lift communities out of poverty with long-term, sustainable solutions based on their needs; humanitarian work, assisting those immediately affected by conflict and natural disasters (at the time they were especially working on the Syrian case); and affecting policy decisions on the causes of conflict at local, national, and international levels.

They found different ways to support their actions. They appeal for financial and material donations. The Oxfam shops are a kind of unusual and interesting second-hand shop that is the organisation’s specialty.

What is the process?

      •          We collect cloth and object donations

•          We sort them between what can be sold and what can’t which is sent to countries in need 

•          The money from the sales and the donations is collected 

•          The money is sent to the headquarters 

•          The benefits are distributed between the shop for its maintainance and to Oxfam’s actions 

My tasks

I worked in one of the shops located at Angel station in London.

I had three different tasks there:

-deal with the purchases at the till

-sort the donations: the clothes that we sell have to be in perfect condition and respect a number of criteria

-shelving

-advising

What I learned from this internship:

-how a shop is run

-improved my English and adapted to different accents

-how the Oxfam charity works

-the English management processes

My internship at Enjoy Art Gallery

What is Enjoy art Gallery?

Enjoy Art Gallery was established in June 2000. This is a non-commercial artist-run initiative based in Wellington. 

Its mission is to generate and facilitate contemporary art projects in order to promote the discourse of contemporary art practice in all its forms.

How does it work?

An artist interested in exhibiting their work applies by describing their work and their motivation and every two week the art gallery choses an artist whose work will be exhibited. 

My task

My task was related to the second part of the gallery’s function: not the selection process but the exhibition one.

I was asked to

-facilitate the installation of the work

-welcome visitors

-answer questions about the artist and their  work

-give a report to the manager about the attendance and development of the exhibition

Here are some works of the artists I have promoted. 

What I learned from this internship:

-how an art gallery works and more specifically a public one

-the management processes in New Zealand

- how to analyze contemporary art

-how to promote an artwork