Internship experience in an art gallery based in Barcelona

Karolina Vitulskytė

As probably many other students did, I was too wondering what should I do when my studies at Vytautas Magnus University will come to the end. Since I studied Art history, criticism and media I got a lot of jokes about how I will certainly never find a job or how I will end up in a place that will never have anything to do with my bachelor’s degree. Naturally, I was scared, so I decided to up my possibilities in getting a job with going to an internship. And that’s how I ended up in Galeria Maxo, in a beautiful and sunny city of Barcelona.
I’m not gonna lie, the whole finding the place, filling the documents and moving to the country I have never been before thing was pretty stressful. But in the end, it all paid off! Barcelona is not only much warmer then Kaunas, but it also has such a beautiful and rich culture. For example, did you know that here, in Catalonia, people have a rather funny Christmas tradition? There is a legend saying that when everyone was going to celebrate Christ birth and give him presents among them there was a small Catalonian boy. Long story short, he really needed to poop. And as he did so he missed the whole Christ celebration. Now on Christmas, Catalonian children beat the log that represents the poop and when they are done beating it, the log „poops out“ presents. You could say they literally beat the sh*t out of it.
The city architecture, the never-ending fiestas with fireworks, dragons, giants and wild dances. There are soooo many things to take in, the time I had seem not enough to experience it all.
The gallery I worked in was also outstanding. People there are the nicest and most loving I have ever met, and the owner is a hardworking Argentinian guy that just love art and crazy things. He is always full of ideas and is always there to help you out. The gallery itself represents the chaotic Barcelona city vibe perfectly. It is an artistic place filled with paintings and colorful collages on the walls. There are also cats casually sleeping on every surface that they can, antique books and vintage toys laying around. Also if you wish we can take a Polaroid picture of you and your chosen artwork. This way you will always be on the gallery ceiling where we keep all our Polaroids with happy customers.
In this internship, I learned a lot. I also got a job in it, so I guess in the end all the jokes about me not getting a job in my study field was really just bad jokes. Now I get to live and work in sunny Barcelona where people like to shoot fireworks to your face for fun and eat burned onions (calcots) from a fireplace. How cool is that?!