The Metropolitan Museum of Art is offering a career program for teenagers to discuss the presence, value and incorporation of gender in the world of working in museums. The program is part of an ongoing series. The Career Labs offer students interested in the field, college and career materials, with information from panels of professionals. This lab will touch on skills and perspectives offered by the complexity and acknowledgment of gender.
The lab explores the influence of gender on the field, with the program being offered for Women’s History Month. Teenagers often spend a great deal of time navigating their gender identity and the impact it has on their life, and the Met lab intends to explain the ways professionals in the industry continue to consider this aspect of their lives in their work.
Teenagers today experience heightened levels of stress – 80% of U.S. students report feeling stressed. This is greatly attributed to academic and career-based anxiety. Generation Z is considered one of the most competitive generations, with an early and aggressive fear regarding the job market. The Career Labs seek to provide insights into these jobs from experts.
“For Women’s History Month, join this interactive event with Museum professionals and gain insights on creative ways that they incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion in their work,” the Met stated. Museums, like many industries, have been criticized for their Eurocentric, sexist and racist practices, and many say that improving the staffing would dramatically alter the culture of curation, as 82.4% of archivists, curators and museum technicians are white. 46.7% of all curators are women, with this number being a serious improvement after a long history of discrimination. Providing accessible and youth-focused programs can encourage a shift in the industry.
“Alice Neel, Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd, 1970. Oil on canvas” – Image via Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles
Alice Neel’s “People Come First” exhibition is being presented in cooperation with this lab. Neel’s focus on everyday people is distinct, as she painted average people in Harlem. Her work with identity, representation and inclusion is cohesive with the content covered by the panelists in the Career Lab.
Panelists for this lab include Milo Thiesen (former Met employee in the Digital Department, now at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts), Julie Marie Seibert (Assistant Educator for Family Programs and Artist), Tricia Robson (Senior Project Manager), Kelly Baum (Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art at The Met and one of the curators of the exhibition Alice Neel: People Come First). The event is also hosted by a Met teen intern and our Teen Programs staff.
The program runs from 4:30 – 6:00 PM and is free of charge, though it does require a device that is connected to the internet. Pre-register here.
