Where and When
Cabinet offers unpaid internships of three to four months for up to two interns at a time. As of mid-2018, we have a small office in Berlin in addition to our Brooklyn office, and internships are available in both cities. The internships are divided into three cycles:
Spring cycle (January–May): application deadline November 1
Summer cycle (June–August): application deadline April 1
Fall cycle (September–December): application deadline July 1
Please note that for fall 2024, we are only accepting applications for internships in Berlin.
Interns are expected to come to our Brooklyn or Berlin office two days a week from 11 am to 6 pm. We only accept interns who can commit to the entirety of the cycle.
How We Work
We are a small non-profit, which means that everyone is involved in everything. Typically, interns spend some 50 percent of their time conducting research for articles and images, but they are also expected to assist as needed in the everyday administrative tasks that are crucial to making the magazine happen, such as helping with mailings and running errands. All staff members are equally involved with these tasks, which we consider no less important to the magazine than research or editing. We particularly encourage applications from those curious about all aspects of running a small non-profit magazine or arts organization.
What Interns Do
Areas of involvement typically include a combination of the following:
—Research (for both article ideas and images)
—Editorial (proofreading, fact-checking)
—Administrative (assisting in fulfilling subscriptions and book orders, helping with events at our space, etc.)
—Design (only for those who have a solid background in InDesign, Photoshop, and/or Illustrator)
In addition to publishing the magazine, Cabinet is often involved with a number of special projects, including books and exhibitions. Interns may be specifically assigned to these projects.
What We Are Looking For
Interns must be hard-working, self-starting, meticulous, and interested
in culture. They must come with their own high standards of excellence, and want to carry out every task assigned them to the best of their ability, not to please us but to please their own internal sense of who they are and who they want to be in the world. We like worriers, those who can imagine the ways in which
any scenario can go awry and make contingency plans, when possible. We
like doers, those who take no task to be beneath them or above them. We
like eternal students, those whose confidence in their knowledge is accompanied by
a sense that what we know is always dwarfed by what we don’t know. We
appreciate historically minded people, those who wonder how US office paper came to be the size it is and therefore do not take it for granted that a letter emailed to someone in, say, Germany can be printed without it
cutting off. We enjoy working with people who do not imagine that the
entirety of the world is available through Google, and who always ask which authorities, if any, can be trusted for a particular fact that needs to be checked. We are especially fond of people interested in ecologies of various kinds, from the ecologies of information to those governing the overproduction and waste that marks our culture today.
How to Apply
Despite these apparently impossible requirements, we receive applications from a good number of highly qualified applicants. We give preference to those whose skill sets best match our particular needs at the time of application. We interview applicants in person or over Zoom.
To apply, please email your CV and a short cover letter by the deadline for the particular cycle you wish to apply for.
Applications should be sent to
internship@cabinetmagazine.org with the subject line “Internship.” We no longer accept applications by mail. Use of corporate jargon (words such as “product,” “exciting,” “opportunity,” etc.) is strongly discouraged, as is moving to New York or Berlin from another location solely for an internship with us.