YOUNG CREATIVES PROGRAM
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
2017 - 2021
MCA GENEXT: Primavera, September 2017. Photo: Jacquie Manning. Courtesy MCA Australia.
From 2017 - 2021 I worked as the Young Creatives Producer at MCA Australia. As part of the Museum’s Public Engagement team I was responsible for the MCA's informal youth-led learning programs.
The MCA Young Creatives was a diverse group of 25 young people aged 14 - 21 who were recruited annually from across Greater Sydney to work with the MCA to advocate for the ideas & experiences of young people while developing & delivering public programs and digital content for their peers and wider MCA audiences.
As Young Creatives Producer I was responsible for every aspect of the program’s development and delivery, including:
Recruitment & training of participants
Pastoral care
Program development & delivery
Digital content production
Partnership development & management
Advocacy and marketing
Budget management & administration
Reporting & evaluation
The Young Creatives program included the MCA Youth Committee, Young Guides and MCA GENEXT. The program launched in 2005 and ran until March 2024.
Photos by Jacquie Manning & Maja Baska. Courtesy: MCA Australia.
MCA GENEXT
The largest of the Young Creatives Programs was GENEXT, the MCA’s flagship youth-led event, which by 2021 had welcomed over 32,000 young people since launching in 2005.
This after-hours, festival-style takeover of the MCA took place up to five times a year and was a parent- and teacher-free event that was programmed and run by the MCA Youth Committee.
Each program took a current exhibition as its point of creative departure and featured workshops, guided tours, panel talks, live music and performances, free food, screenings and more.
OFF-SITE & ONLINE:
GENEXT GOES ONLINE
31 May 2020
When the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily closed the Museum in 2020, GENEXT became the first MCA program to go live online on Sunday 31 May 2020.
GENEXT Goes Online, was a digital only event produced, curated and hosted by the MCA Young Creatives inspired by the 22nd Biennale of Sydney and in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
GENEXT Goes Online featuring live-streamed performances, panel talks & activities, including an Auslan visual story-telling workshop, plus curated digital content including zines, VR Spotlight talks of the Biennale by MCA Young Guides, quizzes and an art-making tutorial with artist Mason Kimber.
GENEXT GOES WEST
2017, 2018, 2020
GENEXT Goes West was an annual peer-to-peer collaboration between MCA Young Creatives and different communities of young people to bring GENEXT to Western Sydney audiences.
Partnerships included Parramatta Artists Studio (2017), Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and CPAC Youth (2018) and Bankstown Arts Centre as part of the Bankstown Biennale (2020)
‘Strikers! Youth leading change’ panel, 2019 Conversation Starters. Photograph: Jodie Barker. Courtesy: MCA Australia
Young Guides Lukas & Soo-Min interviewing artist Pipilotti Rist for MCA.com.au
YOUNG CREATIVES - MUSEUM-WIDE ENGAGEMENT
Working with the MCA Young Guides and Youth Committee members, Young Creatives offerings were integrated into museum-wide events including the annual public program Conversation Starters (2017-2019), and International Women’s Day 2021.
Young Guides also worked with the Curatorial & Digital team to produce significant digital content for the MCA website including interviews with artists Lindy Lee, Shaun Gladwell, Pipilotti Rist and Khadim Ali, as well as audio guides for exhibitions including Lindy Lee (2020) Jenny Watson (2017) and David Goldblatt (2018)
RESEARCH & PUBLICATIONS
‘BY YOUNG PEOPLE, FOR YOUNG PEOPLE - A REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF MCA GENEXT’ 2019
In 2018 the MCA commissioned cultural research agency Patternmakers to help evaluate GENEXT, asking: “What impact does attending GENEXT have on participants, now and into the future?”
This significant project evaluated both the short and long-term impacts of participation by young people in the program, which at that stage in its 13-year history had welcomed over 30,000 young people to the Museum.
Past and present MCA Youth Committee members were invited to help co-design the evaluation framework and in my role as MCA Project Lead I was also a contributing author to the final report, which was published in June 2019 and can be downloaded from the MCA website here.
Key findings from the report included:
GENEXT is a safe space that welcomes young people from different backgrounds
74% of past attendees say GENEXT helped them express their identity
8 in 10 feel GENEXT positively impacts their overall wellbeing
GENEXT is creating a new generation of art lovers
Peer-led programming is critical, and could be expanded
GENEXT is playing a role in developing diverse arts audiences
JOURNAL OF MUSEUM EDUCATION
Volume 4, Number 4, December 2021
A peer-reviewed paper, “Pockets of Resilience - The Digital Responses of Youth Collectives in Contemporary Art Museums during Lockdown” by Dr Carolina Silva that includes GENEXT Goes Online as one of several international case studies.
You can read more about the case study and access the article here.