Writings, News
Jo Higgins
Art Guide Australia: Home Truths - feature story
Art Guide Australia: Home Truths - feature story
News, Writings
Jo Higgins
Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published
Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published
Writings
Jo Higgins
ABC Arts: 'Air' at QAGOMA
ABC Arts: 'Air' at QAGOMA
Writings
Jo Higgins
ABC Arts: Megan Cope is building a living, ...
ABC Arts: Megan Cope is building a living, breathing artwork on Minjerribah
Writings, Events
Jo Higgins
Art Collector: Pull Focus interview with Abdul ...
Art Collector: Pull Focus interview with Abdul Abdullah & Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

MCA GENEXT

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Connected Audiences Conference - Culture & Young People: What could possibly go wrong?

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I’m heading to Berlin next month to co-present a paper and deliver a workshop with my former MCA Australia colleague Yaël Filipovic at the biennial Connected Audiences Conference.

Convened by the Institute for Cultural Research Participation in Berlin and the American Institute for Learning Innovation, in 2025 the conference has the brilliantly apt provocation: “Culture and Young People: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Factors, Challenges and Opportunities of Cultural Participation for Youth”

Yaël and I will be sharing our experiences with youth-led programming in Australia; the importance of institutional support; and how we have taken our learnings forward in our respective careers.

I’m really excited for the opportunities to connect with and learn from peers internationally, to test and develop my own skills and ideas in relation to institutional practice and working with young people.

I’m very grateful to have received funding from Creative Australia to undertake this professional development opportunity and excited to share my learnings on my return.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

OTHER POSTS

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Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published

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Of the many genuinely special outcomes to emerge from the National Young Writers Program that I’ve been leading at the National Gallery of Australia for the last couple of years, this latest issue of Artlink magazine has to be one of the proudest.

Artlink has been publishing thematic issues dedicating to contemporary art practice across Australia and the Asia-Pacific for over four decades. It’s a rigorous, provocative, thoughtful publication that has long championed emerging and early career writers. I should know. My first by-line was a review for Artlink over 20 years ago (a Very Cringe Read all these years later, but still.)

Having Artlink Editor Una Rey and Assistant Editor Belinda Howden join the National Young Writers Program this year - with Artlink as official Publishing Partner - has brought another level of rigour, context, professionalism and care to the program. Their faith (in me, the program, the participants) to offer up their Summer issue to three program alumni to guest-edit as part of a paid professional development mentorship has been such a huge undertaking.

Back in July, Claire Osborn-Li, Ava Lacoon and Hen Vaughan were selected as guest editors and they’ve been working with Una and Belinda over the last five months to conceive, commission, edit and deliver their issue, Hyphen. It is now officially out in the world…

I feel very proud of them and very proud to have contributed an essay to this issue. “The Museum As A Cowboy Place” is my rethinking of the critical role of youth programs and young people to museums in the wake of MCA Australia quietly shuttering their Young Creatives programs earlier this year, including GENEXT, the Youth Committee and Young Guides.

The museums might be struggling (and/or getting it wrong) but if Hyphen and its guest editors and other young writers are any measure of things to come, the future feels salvage-able/possible/bright?….

You can order a hardcopy and/or buy a digital version of Hyphen via the Artlink website here. Please support the magazine and these writers. And if you want a taste - Claire, Ava and Hen’s editorial is available to read free here.

OTHER POSTS

Journal of Museum Education article: "Pockets of Resilience - the Digital Responses of Youth Collectives in Contemporary Art Museums During Lockdown."

Last year I had the opportunity to speak with academic and research Dr Carolina Silva for her paper looking at the different responses of youth collectives at contemporary art museums around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic and mass closure of cultural institutions.

MCA GENEXT Goes Online was one of three case studies she examined.

(In a coming full circle career moment the other two programs Silva profiles are the Whitechapel Gallery’s Duchamp & Sons, who were part of the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project; and MOCA Teens at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; and whose program managers, Michelle Antonisse and Jorge Espinosa, I had the huge privilege of learning with last year as part of a peer learning community with the Walker Art Center.)

You can access the article, which appears is in Vol.46, Issue 4, by clicking on the cover image.

OTHER POSTS

I acknowledge the Gadigal and Bidjigal peoples of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the unceded land on which I live and work and I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.