Statement of Purpose
In my home country China, I have visited and volunteered at many museums. While working, I have noticed how many international tourists find it difficult to understand our culture from the items on display, even with English annotations. After talking with my professor about this experience, he relayed a similar story about the difficulties he had trying to cooperate with an American museum on an exhibition due to language and cultural barriers. China owns so many tremendous cultural treasurers but find it hard to show its beauties to the world. This is the reason I wish to master knowledge in art, culture, and museology – which has eventually led me to apply for an Arts Management program in the United States. I wish to be one of the bridges that connects my country with the rest of the world.
Dissatisfied with what I learned from museology classes, I tried to seize extra opportunities to gain more knowledge of the field. I visited many Chinese museums and tried to investigate those museums with a professional perspective and put myself in the role of an organizer. While the Chinese museums have tremendous development these years, the limited capability in the tight reliance on government, the low ability to attract donations, the disorder of regulation, the absent of oversight, and the lacking of professionals, are all big obstructions that restrict the growth and mature of the Chinese museum industry. For this observation, one of the purposes for my abroad study in Arts Management is seeking for a mature mode to irrigate the young Chinese museum world. Since American owns the most well developed nonprofit sector as well as the mature museum industry of the world, I believe that the experience and knowledge I gain here will finally nurture Chinese museums.
Now with one semester’s abroad study in arts management, I’ve got a much concrete understanding of the American nonprofit sector—where museums contain an indispensible part of the whole sector. Compared to the initial paradisiac imagination of the American nonprofit sector, my learning of the board of director management and the seminar in arts management has helped me build up my first step in considering the contrast between America and China. From the reading material of the nonprofit history in America, I’ve been informed of the foundation of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. is composed of the value of individualism, the hostility of centralized power, and the separation of the church and state. Not only this, my real observation of the organizations and their board meeting tells me that American nonprofit world also has the strong charitable and voluntary tradition as well as the well-functional legal structure. While all these elements help shape a organized, private, non-profit-distributing, self- governing, and voluntary American nonprofit sector (including the museum), the Chinese nonprofit world, however, has totally different situation that I should not apply all my knowledge gained in this arts management program directly into China as I supposed before I came to the U.S. Though inevitable depression attracts me, a fighting spirit also raises and forces me to study harder and work more dedicatedly in my following learning and volunteer activities and internships. Getting rid of the unrealistic worship, I’ve now got a rational and targeted attitude to better absorb the American arts management skills and experiences, which will finally bring me more useful knowledge for my future work in Chinese museums.
Looking back, I am proud to say that I have obtained many important qualities as a future art manager, but I still lack international experience and cross-national comparative perspective. That is why I wish to study art management in the US, the leading player in the field, and George Mason University, where the top arts management education resources are located. I am confident George Mason University’s program would offer me a comprehensive management education—not only specific courses like fundraising, marketing strategies, arts policy, arts and society, and gallery management, but also Mason’s strong and healthy connection with the DC arts community. Benefiting from George Mason University’s academic advantages, I will receive a systematic education in quantitative management skills. I am confident that after two years study at George Mason University; I will be prepared to work as a frontline ambassador of Chinese-Western art and culture.
Link to Statement of Purpose: Lu Zhang’s Statement of Purpose