Jo Higgins

Museum Teen Program How-To Kit

WALKER ART CENTER, MINNEAPOLIS, 2023

The Museum Teen Program How-To Kit was published in July 2023 by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, edited by Simona Zappas, Nisa Mackie and Dr Yolanda Majors.

The book, which includes comprehensive essays, activities and reflections that look at complex pedagogies, social justice, group dynamics, teen subcultures and institutional complexities, was born out of a six-month long peer-learning community in 2021 and builds on years of research by the Walker Art Center investigating teen arts programming and pedagogy.

Nisa Mackie, who was then the Walker’s Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs, explained of the publication: “We wanted to create a book that specifically advises how to structure a teen council, navigate the museum-as-institution (and how young people contend with it), and support group facilitation techniques.”

My essay “Heartbreakers and Troublemakers: How to Navigate, Embrace & Ultimately Survive Disruption” can be found on pp.396-410.

A full, free PDF of the book is available via the hyperlinked image above.

You can read more about the PLC and my participation here.

Beyond community engagement: Transforming dialogues in art, education and the cultural sphere

UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES / COMMON GROUND PUBLISHING, 2018

Edited by Kim Snepvangers and Donna Matthewson-Mitchell, Beyond Community Engagement features a peer-reviewed chapter co-authored by Jo Higgins and Sarah Coffils, “Collaboration or cooperation: Peer-led learning and institutional partnerships through two case studies.” 

The chapter explores, from a practitioner-based perspective, two recent arts projects that employed peer-led and project-based models of learning to engage with audiences of young people aged 13-25.

These projects include the London-based Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project and the Pilot Regional Youth Engagement Project that formed part of Kaldor Public Art Projects’ Project 30 - Marina Abramovic: In Residence.

You can read more about Sarah’s and my chapter, including our abstract, and the approach we took to writing this paper here.

21st CENTURY PORTRAITS

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON, 2013

21st Century Portraits explores new developments in the representation of the human form and face as well as the continuing appeal of commissioned portraiture.

Written by Jo Higgins, with a foreword by Andrew Graham-Dixon and an essay by Sandy Nairne (Former Director of the National Portrait Gallery) and Sarah Howgate (Curator of Contemporary Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery), 21st Century Portraits features more than 150 portraits by 50 international artists.

Organised thematically, the book examines seven key strands of portraiture: Observational Portraits; Self-Portraits; Commissioned and Celebrity Portraits; Social Portraits; Geopolitics and National Identity; The Body; and Re-invented Portraits.