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Idel Mena Enjoys Interning at Photoworks in England

Published August 1, 2019

From FSU Art BA ’19 Idel Mena:

“This past fall I got the incredible opportunity to intern at Photoworks in Brighton, England. This is a publication that I have looked up to for years and aspired to be a part of. This internship was very hands on. I got to learn how a publication as big as this works from the bottom up. I got to see the process of picking images and how incredibly difficult it is to create a book of photos that is both meaningful and tells a compelling story. I got to meet all types of professionals including curators, which was a career I had little knowledge about. Working with curators helped me gain a whole new perspective on art. They are the people who pick what art gets hung up, and their relationship to art is so different from that of an artist. Even though they are artist in their own way it was interesting to see how a show gets put together.

The other great thing about my time at Photoworks is that my term in Brighton was in the same term as their Photo Biannual. A photo festival that they put on every two years in the city. I got to see this festival literally come to life. I got to paint gallery walls while at the same time meeting the artist who were chosen to show in the exhibitions. I got to understand their pieces from their perspective, which gave an insight I wouldn’t have had before. I spent a lot of time monitoring the gallery spaces. I got to learn about each exhibition pretty extensively so that I could then regurgitate that information to the visitors. Overall this experience was nothing but absolutely great. It really opened my eyes to the real world of a studio artist and their relationship to a big publishing company like Photoworks.”