Alumni Feature: Emma Siddoway Estrada

2018, Art History & Curatorial Studies

I am a researcher at Tate, the art museum in London. I conduct donor prospect research for the entire Tate network of museums in the UK (including Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives). This includes researching and writing in-depth profiles on prospective donors to be presented to executives in our fundraising department in order to match them with various programmes at the museum. I assess these donor's net worth and propensity for philanthropy in order to pair them with an area of the museum that would best fit their philanthropic interests. This ranges from joining an annual patron membership which gives them exclusive access to exhibitions, curator-led-tours, private dinners with artists, etc., giving money toward an exhibition, supporting conservation of the art, lending or donating a work of art from their personal collection to the museum collection, or supporting a new commission. Additionally, I conduct due diligence on prospective donors in order to ensure that their origin of wealth and personal ethics align with those of the institution.

Throughout my undergraduate degree at BYU I only ever considered a career path in academia. It wasn't until someone from the auction house Christie's New York came to speak to us that I started to consider pursuing the commercial side of the art world instead. This, in addition to taking the Art History Business Capstone Course, led me to start applying to commercial galleries in New York post-graduation. I got a job at the large blue-chip gallery Gagosian after I graduated and spent almost two years there, first at their Manhattan headquarters before transferring to their Los Angeles office. This was a very informative and important time in my career, but it also helped me realise I didn't enjoy the commercial art world and I moved to a role at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). This is where I was first introduced to fundraising, the important behind-the-scenes work that almost every art institution must do in order to continue producing art programming for the public. I spent about two years there before I pursuing my MA in the History of Art at University College London and eventually securing my job at Tate.

The Art History program at BYU makes you an incredibly independent and confident researcher and writer, skills I have used throughout all of my professional positions but in particular at my current role at Tate. I also found the professors in my department at BYU to be extremely enthusiastic mentors, willing to discuss research topics, provide essential feedback, and offer a more collaborative approach to research. My colleagues, as well as fellow cohort during my MA, came from institutions where they did not have this close relationship with their professors and I could see it was far more difficult for them to have confidence in their work as well as to work in a collaborative manner, which is essential in the work force.

I wish during my time at BYU that there was a more proactive approach to connecting current art history students with alumni. It can be very overwhelming deciding a career path and the most helpful thing for me, and what I recommend to all undergraduate students, is to speak to as many people as possible. Reach out to people in various roles working in the field you are interested in to get a sense of the types of positions you'd enjoy pursuing. Often in the humanities you can feel pigeonholed to academia, but there are hundreds of roles in the arts that many don't realise they can pursue. These discussions can broaden your view and be paramount in pursuing the right opportunities that will set you up for the most success after graduation.

I enjoy traveling (which is luckily quite easy when you live in London and mainland Europe is only a cheap and short flight away!), visiting exhibitions at London's incredible museums and galleries, antique shopping, running and reformer pilates, reading, and playing guitar.

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LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-estrada-9aab80127/