9/22/22 - First Assignments (And Helping with Exhibitions)

Today was our second day of the internship, and it was the day when we finally started on our projects. Unfortunately, our department manager, Phuong, was out, but another internship manager, Mei, was there, so we talked with them and they got us started on some projects that our manager emailed us about. The one that we chose to work on was a presentation on the teas of Asia, and we started right after our typical briefing. We learned about the history, significance, and different ceremonies surrounding tea, looking at 5 major Asian countries: China, India, Vietnam, Japan, and Korea. I focused on the history and China today, and learned some fun facts like all tea comes from one plant, it's how they process it that makes different teas. Eventually, at around 3, Mei came back and introduced us to Rebecca, who is the current exhibitions curator. She had us decide whether we wanted to paint or clean in order to help set up the new exhibit which is Yokai Japanese woodblock prints. We decided to help clean the display cases and so we got started right away. Immediately, I was learning things about the behind the scenes of art display and set up. They had to keep the gallery at a certain temperature and wrap the display cases in a special paper so less dust would collect, and we had to use gloves when cleaning as to not smear any oils or dirt on the acrylic. We also got to see the storage room and being interested in art, it was cool to learn about the often overlooked, but very necessary part of art. We had to leave soon after so we only got around half of the cases cleaned, but overall it was a pretty productive day.