This summer, we’re thrilled to spotlight Sophie Collinet (ARAD ’25) and celebrate her recent internship as a Fundraising Intern at SARUYA Artist Residency in Fujiyoshida, Japan, near the iconic Mount Fuji. SARUYA is dedicated to reviving the city’s rich textile heritage while fostering artistic exchange and community engagement.
Let’s dive into Sophie’s experience and the incredible work she contributed to during her time at SARUYA!
Could you provide an overview of your current internship and the organization you are working with?
Sure! This summer I worked as a Fundraising intern at SARUYA Artist Residency, located in Fujiyoshida at the bottom of Mount Fuji in Japan. For a month and a half, I helped the director develop a list of potential sponsors, prepared grant applications, and helped produce visuals to share with individuals or organizations interested in learning more about the residency. It was such an enriching experience, particularly because the city has a long history of textile crafts(wo)manship, and the director tries reviving it through his residency program. It helped me understand how a business with a social mission functions, and how it collaborates with its surrounding community to achieve its goals.
What does a typical day look like during your internship?
To give a bit more context to my internship, the director of the residency also runs SARUYA Hostel and a café called FabCafé Fuji, all three located only a few minutes from each other.
A typical day working for the residency usually started with meeting the director and one of his employees at the hostel, where there was a nice working environment on the ground floor. There, I would usually research more about what the residency strengths are, the city’s history, how his three businesses function not only concerning each other but also with the community, the Triennale Fuji textile week that he manages, and current donors.
By continuously improving my knowledge on these topics, I would then feel more comfortable doing donor research. This essentially means finding people or organizations that had a shared mission with SARUYA, collecting data on them, and preparing the outreach process. I usually took my breaks at the Fabcafe, and worked 40 hours a week, discovering the beautiful nature around Mt Fuji on my weekends.
Based on your experience, what guidance would you offer our students seeking internships in the related organization?
I would probably say prepare your interview well! Think about what you can offer to the organization, where your strengths lie, and imagine the questions that they could ask you so you’re not surprised and you even look confident. In other words, anticipate, and all will go well. Remember that as a student in the ARAD program at Teachers College, you’re taking classes that permit you to know all about the admin side of the arts, and most importantly, how to not repeat past industry mistakes, or make it elitist. You’re a real asset for art organizations trying to do better, and they’re looking for people just like you.
How has this internship shaped your understanding of the art industry, and what skills have you found most valuable?
It helped me realize that while as an art manager, you could simply focus on your team, and the current service/product you sell, there’s also a lot of value in developing external relationships, your link to your community, and researching potential collaborators. I saw how the residency where I interned had been able to grow over time thanks to the many relationships that it developed with local craft(wo)man, the city technological center, and foreign institutions. They can now leverage these relationships to get more visibility, help others, help their residents, and ultimately, yes, enhance their services. I think witnessing this made me more confident in reaching out to people with you I’d like to work, to transform an idea or vision into something tangible!
Sophie Collinet (ARAD ’25)
Sophie Collinet grew up in France, making her way from London to New York, and she is now pursuing her MA in Arts Administration at TC.
Sophie graduated in July 2022 from Bayes Business School in London with a BSc in International Business. During her time there, she founded an art student organization and participated in entrepreneurship challenges. After graduation, she gained valuable experience working at several art galleries, including LUMAS, SAATCHI, and FOLD, while also working on her first startup. It was then that she realized her passions lay at the intersection of art and entrepreneurship.
She is particularly interested in collaborating with individuals and organizations dedicated to reducing barriers to success for visual artists who identify as women, as well as building her own company with a similar mission.
Arts Administration 
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