Opportunities

Visitor Engagement Associate -

The Wende Museum is seeking Visitor Engagement Associates to provide administrative and hospitality support. The Visitor Engagement Associate position assists with donor hospitality, guest services, and various administrative tasks, with the possibility of additional hours on weekends.

Start Date: Open
Schedule: Estimated to work between 4 – 16 hours a week as needed.
Rate: $22.30/hour

Roles and Responsibilities

• Providing front-of-house guest services, including greeting and registering guests
• Supporting donor hospitality by serving and replenishing catering, ensuring a welcoming environment
• Supporting inventory management and catering logistics
• Assisting with event setup, logistics, and breakdown
• Performing administrative duties as needed to support museum operations
• Contributing to the overall cleanliness, organization, and upkeep of our facilities

Ideal Candidate
• Service-minded with a professional demeanor
• Organized, detail-oriented, and able to manage time effectively
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work both independently and as part of a team
• Ability to adapt quickly to changing tasks and priorities
• Enthusiastic about history, fine art, humanities, or political science
• Dependable with the flexibility to accommodate an ad-hoc schedule

Skills & Experience
• Previous administrative and/or hospitality, foodservice, events, or retail experience is a plus
• Familiarity in Mac OS, iOS, Microsoft Office Suite, and Google Docs

The Wende Museum is committed to fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. We encourage individuals from all backgrounds, including people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and those without formal education, to apply

How to Apply
Please submit your resume and a brief cover letter as a single PDF attachment with the subject line “Administrative & Hospitality Support” to Maggie Jonas, Engagement Lead, at mjonas@wendemuseum.org.

Collections Internship

“Wende” is a German word that means “transformation.” It is commonly used to describe the era of uncertainty and possibility leading up to and following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Headquartered in a renovated National Guard Armory in Culver City, the Wende Museum is a cultural laboratory that pairs unparalleled collections from the Cold War era with contemporary artists, filmmakers, musicians, scholars, and others. The Wende’s collection encompasses more than 100,000 holdings, ranging from consumer products to fine art, political symbols, audiovisual materials, spy equipment, posters, ephemera, commemoratives, books, archives, and personal histories.

The Wende Museum offers Collections Internships for currently enrolled undergraduate or graduate students, as well as recent graduates who are interested in gaining experience in collection management, collection development, and artifact research. Positions are part-time, paid at $18/hour for 120 hours, and available for course credit. Internships are offered year-round, typically beginning in January, June, and September.

The Collections Internship will focus on cataloging the Museum’s incoming acquisitions and existing backlog. Interns will gain experience in key areas of object handling, processing objects, and using a museum database (Mimsy XG). Interns will have the opportunity to directly work with artifacts from the Cold War and be exposed to a variety of museum activities. Potential interns must meet the following criteria for consideration:

• Be available to work part-time between Monday and Friday;
• Have completed at least one semester of college by the time of application;
• Possess an interest in museum studies, collections management, history, and/or material and visual culture of the Cold War;
• Be comfortable working with databases and computers;
• Be detail-oriented, self-motivated, and independent, with excellent communication skills;
• A reading knowledge of German, Russian, or an Eastern European Language is helpful but not required.

We are currently accepting applications for our Summer internship, which is set to begin in June 2025, through May 2. To apply, please fill out this form and send a cover letter outlining your interest and a current resume to internships@wendemuseum.org.

Please indicate that you are applying for the Collections Internship, both in the email subject and cover letter.

Student Council Podcast Series

Curious about the world of podcasting? Seeking to gain experience in digital journalism, social media content curation, or arts & culture programming? Now is your chance: the Wende Museum and Thomas Mann House joint Student Council is seeking new members for its 2025 season and an all-new podcast format! Join us and get involved in the hands-on curation, moderation, and creative production of this brand new podcast.

For the past three years, the Wende Museum and Thomas Mann House have partnered on the Student Council, a dynamic monthly interview series, inviting prominent guest speakers from the U.S., Germany, and around the globe to discuss topics relating to art, culture, politics, and society. The interview series is organized and hosted by a group of highly engaged, talented, and diverse undergraduate and graduate students, and presented in partnership with dublab, a Los Angeles-based online radio station.

In conversation with artists, historians, journalists, politicians, and activists, the students have explored how democracies can successfully deal with increasing global levels of ecological, political, social, cultural and economic stress and polarization. Previous interview series have been themed “In Search of Truth” (2022), “The Political Mandate of the Arts” (2023), and most recently “Democracy and Vulnerability” (2024), in keeping with the Thomas Mann House’s annual topic.

For the upcoming 2025 season, themed “Across Boundaries,” we are excited to update the format of the interview series and transform it into a complete podcast season (six episodes in total) that will be produced, recorded, and aired live at the dublab studio in Los Angeles!

The Council will meet on Zoom to plan the series, and then will host a live interview at the end of every other month at the dublab studio in Los Angeles. A time commitment of 8-10 hours per interview is expected (including team meetings on Zoom, independent research time, travel, and interviews), for which participants are compensated. Participants must be able to consistently attend online meetings and offline interviews in L.A.; otherwise, and apart from current student status, there are no formal requirements to join the Council.

To apply, click the button below and submit an application through the Google Form. Applications must be submitted by Monday, November 25, 2024 at 12pm PT.

Please reach out to Wende Museum Special Projects Assistant Gina Segall (gsegall@wendemuseum.org) with any questions.

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