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Jo Higgins
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Published outcomes - National Gallery of Australia: Digital Young Writers Mentorship
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Jo Higgins
ABC Arts: 'Air' at QAGOMA
ABC Arts: 'Air' at QAGOMA
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Jo Higgins
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ABC Arts: Megan Cope is building a living, breathing artwork on Minjerribah
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Jo Higgins
Exhibition essay: Topographies of painting - ...
Exhibition essay: Topographies of painting - Gregory Hodge, Sullivan + Strumpf
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Jo Higgins
ABC Arts: Richard Bell at documenta fifteen
ABC Arts: Richard Bell at documenta fifteen

MCA GENEXT

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.

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Raise your voice: young people in the arts

The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote for MCA Stories & Ideas reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on the Young Creatives programs this year and inviting several alumni to contribute their reflections and hopes for a post-COVID cultural sector, with young people at the heart.

At the start of 2020, I began working with three Young Creatives alumni, Emily Lienert (2018–2019), Maleeka Gazula (2017) and Steph Sekulovska (2016–2017) to co-develop and present a series of programs for the wider arts sector, including a professional development program, ‘Working with young people in the arts’. Building on the findings of our 2019 GENEXT Impact report, my own Churchill Fellowship findings, and Emily, Maleeka and Steph’s expertise, we were excited to share our insights into best practice for building youth-led programs in museums. We wanted to expand upon how cultural institutions can support young people’s creative youth development, and highlight ways that museums can benefit from having young people in the building.

And then COVID-19 struck.

While some Young Creatives programs were re-imagined, others, including our professional development program, were rescheduled for 2021. These last 6 months have raised so many challenges for all of us in the arts sector, but for those of us working with young people, the stakes have felt particularly high – we’ve witnessed the significant social, mental and educational impacts of life under lockdown.1

We’ve been grappling with a whole lot of questions, including:

  • What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the lives and creative outlets of young people?

  • What role (if any) has creativity played in their isolation?

  • What might a post-COVID-19 world look like for young people?

  • What role can the museum play for young people in this new-normal, not-quite-post-COVID world?

I invited Emily, Maleeka and Steph to think about some of these issues and reflect on their relationship with the MCA and the broader cultural sector. Here, they write about why they wanted to be part of youth-led programs, and whether COVID-19 has changed the way they think about art, museums, creativity and the future wellbeing and contribution of young people.

1. Kids Helpline and the Australian Human Rights Commission have co-authored a report on the impacts of COVID-19 on children and young people who contact Kids Helpline; and the ABC has also reported on mental health pressures on young people.

Continue reading on the MCA website here.

Image: Artwork by MCA Youth Committee members as part of their workshop “Assumptions Roulette” for MCA Conversation Starters, September 2017.

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MCA GENEXT Goes Online

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I can’t imagine that anybody’s 2020 is unfolding in quite the way they had imagined. At some point I hope to have the headspace for reflection and clarity and calls to action (assuming we ever get to a post-COVID world…) but the temporary shuttering of the MCA has meant the cancellation of all my scheduled programs this year, including GENEXT.

Over the last few months I’ve been supporting the MCA Youth Committee and Young Guides, experimenting with new forms of digital communication, art-making, activism, wellbeing and youth-led public programming, to re-imagine GENEXT for an online audience, taking inspiration from the 22nd Biennale of Sydney and this strange, exhausting, uncertain time we’re now living in.

On Sunday 31 May 2020 we launched GENEXT Goes Online, which included live-streamed performances and panel talks, all MC’d by the Youth Committee, as well as a (frankly phenomenal) collection of digital content including zines, quizzes, artist interviews and guided making activities, VR exhibition spotlight talks, an Auslan visual storytelling workshop, interactive creative prompts and a live dance class.

At some stage I will find the time to come back to this post and reflect more thoughtfully on what I’ve learned from this experience but for now, I’d just encourage you to take a digital wander through the program here.

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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, present and emerging.