Practical training at Book a Street Artist

Since even before I joined the IB programme, I have had interest in arts. As a high school student, I spent a lot of time with practicing artists, and I have studied painting and piano myself. Eventually, this interest transformed into a career goal in the arts industry. In this light, it seemed natural for me to seek an internship at a company that worked with artists closely.

At the time of my application, I was in South Korea. My exchange semester has long since ended, and I was working as an English tutor at the university. Frankly, after I have received numerous rainchecks over the months, I felt hopeless.

Book a Street artist caught my attention because of its name: it seemed perfect. The company’s mission is to provide bookings and visibility to independent artists who are not signed under any specific company or management. The Book a Street Artist platform is kind of like Airbnb or Booking.com, but for booking artist services. The platform operates on the global scope, but its office is in Berlin.

I was accepted to the Artist Relationship Management division as an intern. In scope of my work, I was responsible for researching of new artists needed in the portfolio to cover the demand or to supply a certain geographical area. Once I found the artists, I would evaluate them according to the internal framework and my own knowledge of arts, and then onboard the candidates that were suitable. My tasks also included support with profile creation, reaching out to artists, and generally being their support and contact person. Sometimes that also included being their shoulder to cry on.

Some activities were also of urgent matter: there were regular “artist hunts” required to cover supply for a specific kind of artist in a defined geographic area.

The team was one of the most intercultural I have ever seen, and we had colleagues from all over the Europe. Of course, that sometimes resulted in tension and some intercultural conflict, which was mostly easy to manage or resolve.

During this experience, I have acquired some unique knowledge of the Berlin art scene, as well as of the international art scene.

Author: Skvortsova Alina