This spring, graduate student Mailys Facchi worked as an intern with the KAM registration department as part of the collaborative exchange partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and École du Louvre in Paris, France—a program which has been in place since summer 2012.
The partnership provides two internships each year for graduate students from École du Louvre at either Spurlock Museum or Krannert Art Museum in exchange for a summer study-abroad course for fifteen University of Illinois undergraduates and five students from École du Louvre.*
The exchange yields many benefits for students, but also benefits the museum in significant ways. Collections Manager Kimberly Sissons stated, “Having Mailys assist the collections team this spring semester was a real boon. Her passion for the work and attention to detail made her ideally suited to work with the permanent collection.”
In her home institution Mailys’ studies focused on collection management and preventive conservation, so KAM staff hoped to apply her skills in relevant ways. Because of her art handling experience and interest in inventory, Facchi’s work at KAM primarily centered on inventory of the African art collection and creating a plan for safely storing art objects while the museum undergoes renovation. As part of that project, she documented artwork locations and measured objects and shelving cases in order to determine the best storage solution for each piece.
Facchi also conducted a partial inventory of much of the museum’s decorative art collection, ancient Peruvian objects, and sculptures. Besides the notation of object location, she also undertook the rehousing a collection of silver pieces into archival boxes and photographing items in the collection.
Sissons continued, “[Mailys] presence helped move forward projects that make KAM collections safer. I appreciated her sense of wonder and interest in the variety of collections objects she encountered.” Mailys’ returned to France in late May; we look forward to the contributions of the next exchange intern from École du Louvre.
* During fall semester 2015, KAM’s École du Louvre intern was Anne-Gäelle Churin, and Illinois Senior in Industrial Design Kelsey Kahl participated in the Paris-based study abroad course.
