This post is part of our Internship Spotlight series. For this installment, we spoke with Wilson Lam (’25) about his internship experience at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.
Can you tell us a bit about your internship?
This internship was with the Wing Luke Museum’s Exhibits department. This position was created primarily to support the design and mounting of the exhibition Lost & Found: Searching for Homeland, which explores the themes of homeland and the varying ideas that people carry about this term, expressed through artworks and oral histories.
Going in, I had really set out to learn about what it meant to be working in a team who put together an exhibition, because I’d never really undertaken exhibition-making as a team effort before. I also wanted to learn about the intricacies of interacting with artists as they submit works for an exhibition, and the logistics of that leading up to an exhibition’s opening.
I had been involved in physically installing an exhibition before, but given that the Wing Luke Museum is the first museum of its caliber and size that I’ve worked with, I really wanted to see what it was like to be part of installing an exhibition in their space as well. This was my second internship with the Wing– I had previously worked with their Collections Department, so it was really exciting to get to work with this wonderful museum again, in a different role.
One of the many benefits of an internship is that it can allow you to get a feel for what it’s like to work in different types of museums. Did this internship help you learn anything about the kinds of work and working environments you value?
I think I would characterize the Wing Luke, and I think they would probably also think of themselves this way, as a scrappy outfit, in the sense that none of their teams are really big. And so I think they are a very nimble operation in that they’re pretty adaptable to each other’s needs, and if life happens to anyone, then often they can try to find ways around that. I really do appreciate the flexibility that comes with maybe not having a very large operation.
But I know that at the same time it really means that budget-wise we are also rather constrained here and there. So it’s just something, I guess, that unfortunately comes to the territory of being an institution and nonprofit of their standing and stature.
How did this internship connect to your academic interests in Museology?
I will say that I have yet to take the exhibits courses (MUSE 524 & 525) with Lane. I’m actually doing it this coming quarter! So, I’m gonna be really interested to see what Lane may bring into the classroom and who she may bring into the classroom, how that compares and contrasts against my experience in already helping to put together an exhibition.
But I did take interpretation (MUSE 522) with Jessica Rubenacker (who was originally going to be my supervisor for this position) and we are thinking about those principles of how to facilitate this transfer of knowledge, how to take words and objects from the artist that they have entrusted to us for the coming 2 years, and try to present that in a way that serves the artists’ visions, our larger curatorial vision, as well as what the public may expect of the Wing.
I think over the course of the Community Advisory Committee meetings, which is how the Wing curates its exhibitions, I’ve really made sure to keep all of these in mind as I walk into these meetings and offer my thoughts on just every aspect of how to put together this exhibition, and how to execute it.
I think there was also a bit of a collections care component to it as well, just because I was assisting in the install, and I actually also got to help transport some art from an artist’s studio into the museum. So there was some hands-on art handling that I really liked getting to learn, and seeing Steffi, my former supervisor, do her thing in the field, like when she was prepping to move these huge canvases, and how we would try to get that onto a U-Haul and safely move it across town on a van along Seattle’s terrain… And yeah, I would say, the parts of the exhibition-building where I was the most hands-on, I definitely found those moments deeply informative and the most enjoyable.
How did this internship impact your sense of confidence as a museum professional?
I’d say something that I’m really proud of is that, not even a month into the internship, my supervisor tasked me with designing the layout for the exhibition, so actually being the decision maker on where everyone’s artwork goes and whose work is in conversation with whoever else’s, as well as where the community story submissions would fit into the exhibition, into the greater ideological arc that we had and how it would augment the artworks’ messages. Personally, I felt like that was a lot of responsibility that I wasn’t sure I was ready to take on. You know, I’m the intern and you’re asking me to design the gallery space!
I don’t think I was intimidated for long. And I think the good thing about having it be a group curatorial effort is that we had already laid out the ideas and themes which would inhabit the gallery. So what I had to do, or got to do, was make sure that all of these themes were taking up space in a way that made sense with how the ideas and emotions may be flowing through the exhibition, and trying to pair that up with the selected artists and their works through the imagery or their submission statements. And I think I’d be pretty proud to say that the final installation doesn’t really deviate from what I had set out. So this is a deep point of pride, definitely.
That’s so cool! Are there any other highlights that stand out to you reflecting on your experience?
Yeah, I also just think getting to build relationships with some artists, mostly local, all of them, you know, living, contemporary, practicing artists, and sometimes getting to work with them and hear about what it’s like currently to be a working artist or to be working in arts and culture, I think that also gives me a sense of what I can be expecting out there, since graduation is upon us.
So I really do treasure these connections that I’m making as well both with the artists, with the community members and also within the Wing, just getting to solidify and deepen my connection with people. Because I think when I was on my first internship there, I didn’t expect it, but everyone on staff was kind of aware that I had arrived, and I had started working there, and I was doing something, like they knew of me. I was like, ‘Oh, I am a known entity in this museum!’ And I think that part of it is owing to the small and scrappy nature of the crew. Everyone talks to each other across departments. Everyone knows a bit about projects across the museum. And yeah, I happened to be part of it.
This time, I got to be a little bit more than the new temp. It was a more extended engagement with the museum this time around. So yeah, definitely more fun getting to know people and vice versa.
How, if at all, did this internship impact your identity or sense of agency as an emerging museum professional?
I mean, I would say that I chose to engage with this exhibition at all, because, to start, it felt like a project that would speak to me personally as someone who has entered the diaspora (I say I’ve got one foot in the diaspora). And yeah, trying to learn more about what it has meant for others to be Asian American, or to claim the Asian American identity.
And so I think that I really wanted to join this effort to create this exhibition and have my voice be included as well as help others realize their visions, and speak, not exactly to speak for a community, but to give voice to so many whose very existence and life experiences are beyond me. There are so many people who submitted from backgrounds of transracial adoption, or from refugee status or refugee heritage. I think there are many ways people migrate, immigrate, emigrate, and hopefully this exhibition would bring to the forefront more versions of that than people may initially think.
So, it was a really meaningful learning experience for me as well, not just from a museum standpoint, but also for myself and the communities that I’m trying to get to know and contribute to over my time here.
Amazing. Ok, time to wrap up: any big takeaways from this internship?
I think getting to say that I was part of putting an exhibition together… I think that is personally big for me, even though I’ve installed artwork before, I’ve written label text before… I think getting the time to really immerse myself in this whole process of seeing an exhibition come together from where I saw it begin, I’d say this was big to me in more ways than one.
Ok, last question, I promise! What’s next?
You know, if the Wing would continue to have me, I’d definitely like to keep seeing what opportunities there are. But I am doing my thesis with their other exhibits, So they’re not getting rid of me for another while 🙂