I cannot believe how quickly the last three months have gone, and boy has this summer been extremely busy for me. When I wasn’t on holiday or exploring Europe, I luckily had various internships to give me a great insight into the world of art!

In July I went to Paris for a few days with my family, immersing myself in all things historic and cultural that was on offer. This was my first time to Paris, and I had an amazing time. We explored all the major art galleries including the Louvre and theMusée d’Orsay. Highlights for myself was going into Notre-Dame Cathedral and Sainte-Chapelle. These are the most beautiful sacred spaces that I have been in, and the stained glass is just exquisite. I could have spent my whole time in each of these places! I am even more fortunate this up-coming term as part of a module that I am studying, Death and Devotion (a module I cannot wait to get started! – it is my ultimate course, all my favourite things for the whole of Autumn term, what can be better?!), we are travelling to Paris in late October for five days to explore – something which I’ll definitely be blogging about!

As well as travelling, I had some internships during my summer – making this probably the most invaluable summer so far. I was told by one of my tutors last year that this holiday is the time to get some vital experience on the CV! It’s a scary thought that this year I will need to begin looking for graduate jobs, and the various internships that I have undertaken during this summer will be extremely helpful toward my future.

Throughout July and August I was the curatorial and public programme intern at the Liverpool Biennial. The Liverpool Biennial is the UK Biennial of Contemporary Art, and for ten weeks every two years the city of Liverpool is host to an amazing and extraordinary range of artworks, projects and a dynamic programme of events. Living in Liverpool when I am not in York, has meant that I have had the opportunity to experience the Biennial first hand. Being offered the role of intern was fantastic, and throughout my two months I have had an incredible time. My role was wide and varied, and enabled me to gain an invaluable insight into the world of the Liverpool Biennial and the art/culture world in general. I assisted the head curator and head of public programmes with a variety of tasks; such as researching, helping organise events taking place, assisting with the technical, logistical and administrative aspects of developing and delivering the year-round public programme and conducting research and collating information on artists for press, marketing, grant applications and general archival purposes. During my time at the Biennial I had the chance to handle some pieces of artwork, one of the jobs packaging and archiving them.

It seems naïve and stupid, but before I came to the Biennial I never knew so much hard-work and enthusiasm went behind the scenes of such an organisation, and I cannot wait to see who the choose for the 2014 Biennial and the various events that will be taking place. Hopefully, I will get the chance to come back and work at the Biennial once again.

For two weeks in September I had the opportunity to become the editorial intern at Apollo Magazine in London. Being an avid reader of the magazine, this was a fantastic opportunity, and I had a great time learning all about the practices and processes of an arts magazine.  Apollo Magazine is one of the leading Art Magazines in the UK, exploring a mixture of traditional and classical work, all the way to contemporary and modern pieces. A definite wide variety. This is one of the aspects that really attracted me to completely an internship here at Apollo, the fact that it is so diverse means that it encompasses all aspects of the art world without ignoring one. I sometimes feel that some areas of art history get neglected because maybe they’re deemed by some as ‘too boring’, or ‘irrelevant in today’s society’, which is why the magazine is so valuable as it explores all areas of art history.

My role as editorial intern was to help and work alongside Apollo’s assistant and head editors, and the two weeks I completed was during press week! This meant that the office was a little hectic, and there was a lot of proof reading to do for the next issue. The various tasks I completed including attending exhibitions at major London museums and galleries on behalf of Apollo to write up reviews for the online blog, picture and copy-righting research, general researching for future articles, proof reading and so much more! I attended my first Arts Fair, and whilst there met the Rolling Stone’s guitarist, Ronnie Wood! Very surreal.

You can read more about my internships on my personal blog: roisingrace.blogspot.co.uk

Apologies for the rambling post, but as you can tell this summer has been incredibly busy! I am excited to return to York and begin my third year; which reminds me, I best get back to packing… I hope that all the first years reading this will have fantastic freshers week, and enjoy settling into York life.