Praxis Course: HART B420 Museum Studies Fieldwork
Semester: Spring 2026
Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott
Community Partner: The Fabric Workshop and Museum
Praxis Site Supervisor: Justin Hall
Praxis Poster:
HART_LaurelGabbard
Further Context:
This semester, I have been interning as an Archives and Collections Intern at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. FWM is a small contemporary art museum, founded in 1977, originally operating as a print workshop for artists. It officially became a museum in 1996. The museum has incredible rotating art exhibitions, while also priding themself on their artist-in-residence program and their extensive community programming.
In my time there, I have been working primarily in the archives on a couple different projects. We began the semester working on photography of banners held in FWM collections, primarily from artist residencies. I then worked to upload items to the CollectionSpace database, and finally, these images were uploaded to the FWM website so the public can better access what is held in these collections. I have also been photographing and recording items held in Artist Boxes, which are filled with items from these artist residencies, in order to catalogue what is held in the museum. In these past few weeks, I have also been assisting in exhibition installation and de-installation. I helped de-install a Moki Cherry exhibit and have since helped with condition reports and installation for other upcoming shows.
I have gotten a lot of great experience in hands-on archival work, and I have loved getting to see so many different aspects of museum work, from digital media and photography to archival organization, to data entry, to exhibit installation and de-installation! I have formed great connections with professionals at FWM and feel very lucky to have had this experience with such a great supervisor! It has been incredibly engaging, and I loved my time here!