Summer 2025 Cultural Curator Internship
Cultural Curator Interns (CCI) work with CFH staff to research and create reports and museum displays on the history and social meanings of China Folk House, its original site in Yunnan and its new home in Appalachia. In addition to research projects, CCI also help coordinate teams of high school students doing hands-on projects on regenerative agriculture, alternative energy, and traditional sustainable architecture.
Key Responsibilities
Tasks will include but are not limited to:
-
Supporting the CFH mission to provide experiential learning opportunities for high school students. CCI will help coordinate and supervise students in the program and share their research projects in workshops and presentations.
-
Participating in hands-on projects: gardening, landscaping, cooking, wood joinery, masonry, hempcrete, earth building, solar installations, water testing, wetland restoration, reforestation. No prior experience or skills are necessary.
-
Researching the traditional practices, material culture, and historical transformations underlying the physical structures of CFH and producing written and multimedia reports for museum displays and online exhibitions. Some work may be completed off site, and the 2025 internship includes the option of field research in Yunnan.
Qualifications
-
Undergraduate studies or degree in a relevant field (Anthropology, Architecture, East Asian Studies, History, Museum Studies) or experience doing independent research..
-
Ability to multi-task, prioritize, work collaboratively, and be flexible.
-
Demonstrated initiative and problem-solving skills.
Location
The internship will primarily be onsite at the China Folk House in rural Harpers Ferry, WV. Some work may be completed remotely, in consultation with the program supervisor. In 2025, the internship includes the option of travel to China (July 5 – August 4) for field research.
Term
Nine weeks (depending on candidate availability) June 2 – August 4. Note that this is a full-time on-site resident program from June 7 to June 29, with the expectation that interns will participate in formal and informal program activities onsite. From July 5 to August 4 CCI interns will have the option to complete their work with field research in Yunnan China.
Compensation
This internship covers all living expenses onsite in West Virginia but does not provide a stipend or travel expenses on the field research in China. Students are encouraged to seek academic credit or funding through their college/university and CFHR will ensure that all paperwork needed to secure academic credit is completed.
Application Materials
Interested applicants should email a cover letter explaining their interest and experience, and current c.v. to: chinafolkhouse@gmail.com subject heading “Cultural Curator internship”
China Folk House is an equal opportunity employer where an applicant's qualifications are considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other basis prohibited by law.
China Folk House Project Overview: 2019 - 2024
The China Folk House was initially researched and moved from China in the summer of 2017. After a year of planning and organizational partnership with the Friends Wilderness Center and West Virginia Timber Framer Guild, CFH began holding summer programs in 2019 for high school students to help in the reconstruction of the house. The 2019 program raised the timber frame of the house, and the 2020 program built the surrounding “hempcrete” walls. Students in the summer 2021 program raised the original kitchen building completing the “western wing” of the courtyard, and in 2022 the main building was completed along with a courtyard and organic vegetable garden. In 2023 students apprenticed with master carpenters from the Timber Framers Guild to raise Chinese-design bunkhouses, and in 2024 they worked with TFG to build a Tibetan-design electric building and kiosk, completed the ethnobotany garden with stone and rammed earth walls, did a courtyard mosaic, and installed an earthen floor in our welcome center. Students and community volunteers learned traditional and sustainable building techniques through hands-on work and encountered the many cultures and folkways of Yunnan through the material culture inscribed in the house itself.



