About the Internship Program

MAST hosts a summer internship program for high school artists. Each student makes a piece inspired by data hosted at MAST. The art can be in the medium of their choice: painting, sculpture, music, performance, animation, augmented reality, fashion design... whatever the student is interested in. Some summers we have themes (for example: sonification), other summers it is more open-ended, as long as the work is inspired by MAST data.

Astro Art: Summer 2023

We hired a cohort of 12 interns from the Baltimore region to create art inspired by or representative of MAST science data. Artwork could be created independently or in collaboration with other interns. The program was 6-weeks: July 10th - August 18th
, and the interns worked 10-15 hours a week. We met in person at Space Telescope Science Institute once a week for 2.5 hours
. Alongside time creating artworks, the students met MAST scientists, wrote a weekly progress journal, participated in educational talks, and visited James Webb mission control.

Sculpted astronaut in classic white space suit, suspended to appear floating against a dark purple star-flecked background

Celine Blanchette

Polymer clay/acrylic paint
Title screen from the animation: An illustration of James Webb Telescope with hovering lines around the edges representing data entering the telescope

Lilah Cohen

Animation
Relief sculpture of a spiral galaxy on a black background. The central disc and arms of the galaxy are painted in broad, almost abstract strokes in bright colors. Shards of clear glass extend from the background, showing the colors behind it and giving the piece dimensionality.

Emma Haines

Plaster, Wood, Glass, Paint, Hot Glue
Still image from an animation, white digital brushstrokes made up of many dots abstractly suggest a central light source and spirals around it, on a black background.

Ezekiel Hickman

Electric instruments, Light Curve Sonifications, Hand-drawn Animation, Digital Animation
A screenshot from Hasan's website about spectroscopy

Hasan Maharoof

Web Design
A still image from inside of AR dome

Aylin Metzel

Augmented reality model
A painting of andromeda in is overlaid with three footprints. The left, representing the ultraviolet, has wispy white stands while the center of the galaxy glows purple. The central overlay, representing infrared, and has long, hazy, red streaks where the spiral arms of the galaxy would be. The right overlay, representing radio emisisons, contains only a few blobs of red, yellow, and green, on a mostly faint blue background.

Maya Nedkova

Acrylic paint on canvas
A student explains something to a young girl and a man. The young girl is seated at a computer which has a music player open.

Maze Pelham

Electronic Music
A close up shot of orange, pink and blue paint of different textures

Cid Vasquez-Castillo

Acrylic paint on acrylic sheets and canvas
A close up of glowing colored triangles that make up the lamp

Jasper Ward

Bamboo, Paper, Hot glue
An oil painting of the cosmic cliffs image with shards of 3-dimensional areas layered on top

Olivia Webster

Oil paint on MDF board
A close-up of the yarn sculpture, a diamond of yellow in the center with orange around the edge

Lily Zhu

Wood, yarn, & fabric sculpture

Slideshow

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We view a group group of paintings of astronomical objects in space from behind a few people's heads who are looking at the pieces.
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On August 10th, 2023 we hosted the Astro Art show at Space Telescope Science Institute HQ. This gallery show event featured the art created by the 12 summer 2023 interns: music, animations, paintings, sculpture, and even augmented reality experience. The show was well attended and the art was especially appreciated by the astronomers who enjoyed experiencing the data they work with daily from in a new way.

Hearing the Light: Summer 2021

We hired students to create art inspired by space sonification that can be enjoyed by a blind audience. We all met by video chat for 6 weeks during the summer of 2021. The student artists were both blind and sighted themselves—so we had a lot of interesting discussions about acessibility and art.

The students created: 2 musical pieces, an animation with spoken word poetry, and a 3-dimensional painting.

Sound waves from RR Lyra Sonification

Emril Bennett

Music
A black and white painting of 2 stars. a spiral representing their movement is painted in the same color as their background, but is 3 dimensional

Caitlin Caughlan

Painting
Flare lightcurve plot

Ashley Neall

Music
A black and firey background with the words "We are a big ball rolling around in space"

Moonasia Williams

Animated Poem