Black Visual Culture Curatorial Internship

Full-Time Onsite Internship

$850/week

June 8 – August 28, 2026

Desired Majors and Areas of Study: African American Studies, Film and Media Studies, Art History, American Studies, English/Literature, History, Gender and Women's Studies, Communication Studies

The Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts (CAAMA) is within the Office of Curatorial Affairs (OCA) at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). OCA including the Centers, facilitates the intellectual work of the Museum by collecting artifacts, ensuring collection preservation and stewardship, conducting research and scholarship, and sharing the rich history and culture of African Americans and all people of African descent with a diverse public in accessible, multifaceted ways including exhibition, digitization, and publication. OCA is comprised of many different divisions and teams including: History, Culture, Visual Art, The Centers and the Scholarly Advisor Committee. 

CAMA is the Museum’s home of visual culture and innovation. Holding the largest collection of objects in the Museum, including more than 25,000 photographs, CAAMA is an intellectual hub for the study, preservation, and exhibition of visual culture related to Black people. The Center brings archives of the past to life through changing exhibitions, public programs, research, and publications that showcase the formation of African American history and culture through photography, film, video, and audio recordings.

This internship opportunity will focus on gaining a deeper understanding of the Museums vast collection of visual culture related to African American and Diasporic life. Supervised by the Director of the Center for African American Media Arts, the intern will assist in conducting research and image reviews for a forthcoming Double Exposure book series. This project is important to advancing CAAMA's mission to be an intellectual hub for Black visual culture as well as the Museum's mission to be a trusted source for scholarly information related to African American life. Along the way, the intern will learn skills in art historical method, object and image analysis, and collections stewardship. By the end of the internship, the intern will have a broad sense of art historical and photography research processes; will be a be able to complete object and image searches using Museum databases; will have skills in producing annotated bibliographies; and will be able to write one short object analysis of a selected photograph.

Duties Include (but are not limited to):

• Assist with image research and selection using Museum databases
• Attend project and departmental meetings in CAAMA as well as in Office of Curatorial and Office of Collections, as necessary
• Conduct content research for Double Exposure book series (including research on objects, images, and archives
• Develop a proposal to complete one short object analysis to be presented at end of internship