The Broad launches new diversity apprenticeship

This summer, The Broad launched the Diversity Apprenticeship Program. The program provides full-time, nine-month paid apprenticeships in art handling to people from groups underrepresented on museum staffs.

After a month of intensive training, the first group of apprentices is now working at partner sites across the city, such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the California African American Museum and Building Bridges Art Exchange, to gain hands-on work experience.

“Sixty-six percent of our visitors identify as non-white, and we believe that to best serve our audience – and to make contemporary art accessible to the widest possible audience – our staff needs to reflect their diversity,” said Joanne Heyler, founding director and chief curator at The Broad. “We created the Diversity Apprenticeship Program so that we could provide opportunities for people to gain the training and experience they need to pursue rewarding careers in the art world, and to increase respect for the field of art handling as a profession.”

“In recruiting for this program, we reached out to those in communities of color, those in Native and Indigenous communities, women, immigrants, people who’ve been formerly incarcerated, those who identify as part of gender-alt commu