Schweeder. Photo: Emily Agopsowicz By Emily Agopsowicz
Tamara Schweeder is finishing up a four-month internship at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV), where she has catalogued artifacts from the recent exhibit, Treasures Unearthed: Chinese Archaeological Artifacts (from Shang to Tang). The placement, part of her Cultural Resource Management Diploma Program through the Division of Continuing Studies, has given her the opportunity to research and handle artifacts from the 16th century BCE to the 10th century CE.
A wheelchair user, Schweeder takes a freight elevator to get to her office every morning in the basement of the gallery where the collections are kept.
Originally from the Shuswap Okanagan region, Schweeder was attracted to UVic’s linguistics program. She completed a BA double major in linguistics and history minor in 2001.
While volunteering at the Royal BC Museum, she saw a poster for the Cultural Resource Management Program and enrolled in 2002.
The program introduces students to all aspects of working in a gallery and museum setting, including curatorship, exhibit design, installation, public programming, collections management, conservation and caring for collections, and it finishes off with a directed study class or internship.
Her internship was not her first contract with the AGGV. In 2005 she worked under contract with the AGGV to develop a federally funded online virtual learning exhibit for students and teachers. Several more contracts with the gallery followed, mostly involving research and writing for exhibits.
“The internship option is really great because you can be strategic with your placement. The program will contact the institution on your behalf. You could really find yourself working anywhere in the world,” says Schweeder.
“For my placement at the gallery, it was the cataloguing experience, which I’ve never done before, that made it really worth while,” she explains.
Schweeder found the staff at AGGV very generous with their time and expertise. “Barry Till, the curator for Asian art, loaned me research material and was very helpful in identifying items,” says Schweeder.
Schweeder is looking forward to a new contract doing an assessment for the BC Provincial Arts collection.
She is confident that the skills she has learned through the program will give her many more opportunities. “The experience gained with this internship will definitely be applied to this contract,” says Schweeder. “Because the program offers something in every facet, I can work in any aspect of the cultural sector, museum or gallery related.”
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