Intern Bios

Ken Aptekar, Extensions / Concealments, installation image, 2.5×6.5 inches, 03/28/78, Franklin Furnace Archive.

Intern Bios

Nina Fletcher

Bio

Nina Fletcher

At Franklin Furnace, Nina Fletcher has helped with developing the complete redesign of the FF website and processed applications to the 2020 Franklin Furnace Fund grant. She is passionate about the ability of media to inspire social change and aspires to work at the intersection of art, social justice, and environmental advocacy. In 2022, she will graduate from Brown University with a B.A. in Modern Culture and Media, after which she hopes to spend the rest of her life engaged in passionate conversations about video art, urban design, and her two pet rats (may they rest in peace).

Irene Wang

Bio

Irene Wang

Irene Wang is one of Franklin Furnace’s summer 2020 interns where she assisted with grant application processing and redesigning the new Franklin Furnace website. She is a rising sophomore at Wellesley College and plans to study both Art History and Sociology. She hopes to continue working in non-profit. She loves cooking, dancing around her room and spending quality time with her loved ones.

Hanyi Yu

Bio

Hanyi Yu

Hanyi Yu is a rising sophomore at Columbia University planning to major in Art History. During her internship at Franklin Furnace in Summer 2020, she assisted artist Arantxa Araujo with the review process of the Franklin Furnace Fund for performance art. She was also on the team for building the Franklin Furnace Digital Loft website. She loves collecting books, learning languages, and Zooming with her friends. She enjoys studying contemporary art and hopes to pursue a Ph.D. degree in the future.

Danielle Damico

Bio

Danielle Damico

Danielle is a multimedia artist whose work explores technologically mediated intimacies and climate change. She received her B.S. in Film, Video & Theatre from Stevenson University in 2014. Her works have screened at venues in and around Baltimore including 2640 Space, Mercury Theater, Red Room and Washington ArtWorks. Music videos have premiered in PunkNews, Baltimore City Paper and through numerous independent music blogs. Danielle was awarded the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fellowship and the Rogers, Taliaferro, Kostritsky, & Lamb Fellowship in 2019. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Intermedia & Digital Art at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Erin Kubota

Bio

Erin Kubota

Maria Hellenbrand joined the Franklin Furnace team as a research intern in the summer of 2020. Her project focuses on collections of artists’ books and ephemera throughout the European continent. This research endeavor into the avant-garde realm especially fascinates Maria, who studies Latin and ancient Greek at Barnard College; she is enthralled by both the echoing and unravelling which occurs in interactions between contemporary art and classical antiquity. After unearthing a day’s worth of gems (artists’ books collections), Maria enjoys winding down with scrabble games and jogs on Wisconsin trails.

Jillian Groening

Bio

Jillian Groening

Jillian Groening is a dance artist and writer. Her work moves within and between
performance and text to explore memory, temporality, and embodiment through methods of
mark-making, scoring, and sensory-oriented documentation. Her work has been presented
through Toronto’s A Space Gallery, MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art), Jazz
Winnipeg, and Plug In ICA’s Summer Institute. Groening has participated in Video Pool’s New
Artists in New Media residency and Festival TransAmériques’ Conversations on Performance
program. She holds a BA(Hons) in Dance from the School of Contemporary Dancers in
affiliation with the University of Winnipeg and is currently pursuing a Masters in Theatre and
Performance Studies at York University.

Joey

Bio

Joey

Joey is a rising senior at Mount Holyoke College. As a psychology and music double major, Joey wanted to explore other areas of the arts and gain experience in arts administration and arts organizations. During their time at Franklin Furnace, Joey worked with artist, Louise Diedrich, for the SEQARTKIDS program, worked with other interns regarding research and future art installations and assisted with the 2020-2021 membership campaign. Joey is excited to have worked at Franklin Furnace this summer and wishes to continue to explore the world of art, arts organizations and nonprofits in the future.

Kaleigh McCormick

Bio

Kaleigh McCormick

Kaleigh McCormick is a summer 2020 intern for Franklin Furnace Archives. She has helped collect information on International Artists’ Books Collections, focusing her research on Australia and New Zealand. She is a rising junior at Columbia University, where she studies art history. She enjoys studying the art and architecture of medieval Europe, specifically the French Gothic cathedrals of the twelfth century. She hopes to become an art lawyer, working at the intersection of art and contemporary law.

Kayla LeGrand

Bio

Kayla LeGrand

Kayla joined Franklin Furnace as a Summer 2020 Intern. During her time at Franklin Furnace, she worked on Franklin Furnace’s Wikipedia page, undertaking large amounts of research to create a page that accurately reflects Franklin Furnace’s robust and distinctive history. Research is Kayla’s forte, having worked as a Research Assistant for Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women (BCRW), and engaging with materials in physical and virtual archives. Kayla is currently attending Barnard College of Columbia University, majoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and minoring in History, and will graduate in 2022. She loves attending concerts, starting books but never finishing them, modern dance, and creating Spotify playlists for her friends.

Mamou Samaké

Bio

Mamou Samaké

Mamou Samaké is an undergraduate student at Mount Holyoke College studying Art History and Africana Studies (Class of 2021). In her time as a 2020 Summer Intern, her projects included running our social media accounts, writing Weekly Spotlight texts on archived performances, and helping to process the 2020-21 applications for the FF Fund. Through her internship she has gained skills in navigating archives, research, writing, social media understanding, and data processing. Mamou has really loved working with this awesome team of staff and interns, and plans to continue working in the arts, particularly in arts education for young people and communities.

Maria Hellenbrand

Bio

Maria Hellenbrand

Erin Kubota is an undergraduate student at Sarah Lawrence College, studying art history and experimental literature. As a 2020 summer intern at Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. Erin has worked with artist Ilona Granet to research and create pitches for organizations and galleries in Japan to exhibit feminist sign art that is part of Granet’s international Little Red Riding Hood project. Erin has also assisted with creating a Bio and editing a proposal to submit to international art festivals in Japan. Erin’s raison d’être is to grow the public’s collective conscious on diversity in the arts.

Patrick Li

Bio

Patrick Li

Patrick Li is a summer 2020 intern for Franklin Furnace Archives. He worked on exhibition design and translations for Historias de La Plata and adapted an animated children’s fable for print for the SEQARTKIDS program. He is a sophomore at Swarthmore College, where he studies education, Black studies, and Spanish. He enjoys writing instructional art and previously worked as visiting assistant gallery director of List Gallery. Patrick hopes to continue investigating the potential of arts education in urban settings whilst pursuing his MD.

Ruth Benitez

Bio

Ruth Benitez

Ruth Benitez – Majored in French and Spanish, and minored in Art History at CUNY Brooklyn College. While interning at the Franklin Furnace she was the curator of the bilingual exhibition, Historias de La Plata. She worked with artists such as Dolores Zorreguieta and Liliana Porter, and the artist collective Por El Ojo, and received guidance from curators like Fatima Bercht and Rossy Ramos. She hopes to continue working on democratizing the arts by making them more accessible to the non-english speaking communities in the U.S.

Sophia Lee

Bio

Sophia Lee

Sophia Lee is an intern in Franklin Furnace’s summer 2020 cohort, where she assists with the grantmaking process for Franklin Furnace’s arts-in-education program, SEQARTKIDS. She is studying psychology and Asian studies at Swarthmore College and is interested in Asian American literature and culturally-relevant pedagogy. She loves working on the potter’s wheel and also enjoys making collage cards to mail to friends. Sophia hopes to continue working in the nonprofit realm that combines arts, culture, and education; and is interested in best practices in arts education for kids.

Yuxin Chen

Bio

Yuxin Chen

Yuxin Chen is a rising sophomore at Columbia University pursuing an Art History major. As a Summer 2020 Museum Intern at Franklin Furnace, she worked on the compilation and translation of Chinese-language articles about the Archive. Yuxin is passionate about promoting intercultural dialogues, and she is grateful for the experience at Franklin Furnace. She can also be found enjoying world cinema, having strawberry shakes, and collecting Jellycat fluffy toys.

Zaria George

Bio

Zaria George

Zaria George is from Florida and currently attends Wellesley College in Massachusetts, near Boston. She is majoring in both English and art history and has a passion for art and design – from their aesthetics to their meaning, and is proud to be working with Franklin Furnace for the summer. Outside of literature and art history, Zaria is interested in photography and film.

Sharon Arana

Bio

Sharon Arana

Sharon Arana is a summer 2020 intern for Franklin Furnace Archives, where she helped draft grant applications and process submissions for the Franklin Furnace Fund. She received her BA in history from Sarah Lawrence College in 2020 and is a MA student in Arab Studies at Georgetown University. Sharon’s previous art experience includes the Judd Foundation and her own dabble in photography. She hopes to continue working in art and/or culture spaces to strive for ethical historical engagement and prioritization of minority groups.