Internship Weekly- Journal 3

Week 3

Date: Tuesday 7th & Wednesday 8th February                                          Total Hours: 14

This was an interesting and active week for my internship, filled with errands-press viewings-proof reading-writing-and shopping. I feel like Lucy and I got a lot accomplished, even though we didn't see either Julie or Beth all week. We communicated via txt messaging and email to find out what tasks we were supposed to do.

My favorite piece "Infinity Mirrored Room-Filled with the Brilliance of  Life"

On Tuesday we went to a press viewing of the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Tate Modern museum. I wasn't really sure what to expect but it turned out to be an eye-opening and exciting experience. We looked around at the artwork, it was a huge collection consisting of paintings, sculpture, photography, full room installations and LED displays...it encompassed her 60 year career as a Japanese artist. The curators tour begin at 11 where the curator introduced herself and a big-wig from Louis Vuitton (OMG) who is sponsoring the exhibition. Once the tour was about to start, Tate Modern employees wheel in someone who looks like an 80 year old Nikki Minaj...the artist, Yayoi Kusama herself, in a wheelchair sporting flashy red hair and matching outfit. Camera's starting flashing and microphones came out as "the press of London," tried to get a shot of her first. I'm glad that I'm so tall, I could just reach over everyone to take a picture. It was the first time she saw the exhibition and her first time to London in decades. She seems kind of crazy, but it didn't surprise me after seeing her artwork.

Some of her recent work

There is nothing half-effort about any of her art. Some of it was very intense but it reflected personal and cultural happenings during the past six decades. After returning from the press viewing we did some busy-work (proof-reading/editing). This was one of my favorite days here so far. I got to experience something totally awesome and unique related to what I want to do as a career. I also found out that something I wrote last week is getting published in the next issue, which definitely made me smile :)  

Louis Vuitton rep. meeting Kusama

Lucy & I so excited about "research" aka shopping!

Today was pretty jam-packed with stuff to get done. Lucy and I split up the tasks and used team-work to get stuff done efficiently. I went to two different concert venues  to pick up leaflets and put them in the post while Lucy did some research on unique shopping centers (the magazine is trying to expand into shopping this year). So essentially, today we had to go shopping...tough life. We went to St. Christopher's Place and Marylebone High Street to do some research. Just behind busy Oxford Street lies St. Christopher's Place. We found a lot of different restaurants and pubs, it was freezing out and people were eating outside? crazy...we kept walking and found the Marylebone area, which I liked a lot more. There were numerous retail stores (most crazy expensive) but nestled in was a charity store (where I found a nice warm scarf). There were also galleries, bakeries, and more restaurants and bars. This area was a lot quieter and unique than the usual insanity found in popular shopping areas. We got back and wrote an article comparing the two shopping areas and our impressions of them. Overall, we did a lot this week and I feel like we are contributing a lot to this magazine, which was one of my goals for the semester.

Yayoi Kusama

While at the press viewing I had somewhat of a cultural/workplace experience. At Central I write for the paper but I've never really gotten to see a "real life" press event. Going in I didn't really know what to expect or do as a member of the press. I paid attention to other people who knew what they were doing...when they took notes, what they took pictures of, did they have there camera flash on, how they reacted when important figures were announced. The fashion-lover inside of me wanted to run to Mr. Louis Vuitton and ask, "Can I take a picture with you please!?!" but obviously that's not professional or how a member of the press should act. I tried my best to observe and learn for future reference. I now know I need to take better note of peoples names so I know who to quote later when I'm writing about it. In addition, I'm trying to get used to British time-etiquette. Today, we didn't know until 9:30am what we were doing today/if we had to go to Zone 3 and meet them...I am a very organized/scheduled person and it's taking some patience and time to get used to sometimes laissez-faire attitude towards punctuality that is common here.