Since 2011 much of my work has focused on informal learning; youth-led engagement programs; and the development of creative opportunities for young people to work with and within cultural organisations, supporting their visibility and agency.
The kinds of youth-led arts programs that I continue to advocate for put the ideas and experiences of young people at the centre of what they do - they demonstrate the enormous value that young people already have - as cultural agenda setters, public programmers, and as young creatives and change makers.
Talking with the participants of Kaldor Public Art Project’s pilot regional youth engagement program, 2015.
In 2018 I was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to further investigate these models of informal and peer-led learning and from April - June 2019 I visited over 30 cultural institutions in the USA and Canada.
Notable youth engagement programs I have worked on can be found below, including:
Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program - National Gallery of Australia (2022-2024)
‘Things I want to say’ at The Condensery - Somerset Regional Art Gallery (2022-2023)
The Young Creatives Program at MCA Australia (2017 - 2021)
Kaldor Public Art Project’s Regional Youth Engagement Pilot Program for Project 30: Marina Abramovic In Residence (2015)
The Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project in London (2011 - 2013)
CURRENT PROGRAM: DIGITAL YOUNG WRITERS MENTORSHIP
NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA
In 2021 I was invited to propose a new youth engagement program to the National Gallery of Australia. The project - and the initial invitation - was broadly informed by a series of conversations and questions we were collectively asking:
About what it means to engage young people both nationally & digitally
About pathways and equitable opportunities for young aspiring creatives
About the role of museums and galleries in supporting young people and providing these sorts of opportunities
About what spaces for critical reflection and engagement might look like and need in order to be productive and safe and generative
About how we tell the stories of our museums and galleries
And about how we build and nurture relationships between different communities and our institutions
From these initial conversations, a pilot Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program was devised and delivered between February and November 2022.
The mentorship invited five established, highly respected arts writers, curators, critics & arts workers to mentor five early career young arts writers over the course of seven months. The mentors were Andy Butler, Tristen Harwood, Jane O’Sullivan, Nur Shkembi and Tian Zhang.
Mentees, who applied via application, worked towards a series of paid published outcomes including texts in response to the National Gallery’s exhibition program and collection, and a series of reviews and interviews for the program’s publishing partner, ArtsHub.
You can read pieces by mentees Jade Irvine, Hen Vaughan, Aisyah Aaqil Sumito, Ianni Huang and Michelle Guo online here.
There were also regular masterclasses and conversations with Gallery staff, sector experts and artists on subjects including writing outside your community, criticism, creative non-fiction and building community
Guest speakers over the course of the program included National Gallery Director Nick Mitzevich; Deputy Director First Nations Bruce Johnson-McLean; ArtsHub Visual Arts Editor Gina Fairley; The Saturday Paper Arts Editor Alison Croggon; Liminal magazine editor Leah Jing McIntosh; cultural critic Cher Tan; writer and artist Diego Ramirez; curators Emily McDaniel and Coby Edgar; and artist Hayley Millar Baker.
The mentorship culminated in a visit to the National Gallery of Australia for its 40th birthday celebrations and a panel talk, “So you want to write about art?” reflecting on the experience of the project and the state of opportunities for young writers today.
Project evaluation included a series of qualitative and quantitative surveys and several reflection sessions, both with project participants and the Gallery.
Further critical reflection was undertaken in May 2023, with a panel talk at the Australian Museums & Galleries Association National Conference - “Speaking up: Reflecting on the National Gallery of Australia’s pilot program supporting critical young voices,” which can be watched here.
Throughout 2023, a period of reflection and iteration has been taking place, with a second year of the program scheduled for early 2024.
PAST PROJECT: ‘THINGS I WANT TO SAY’ YOUTH ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM
THE CONDENSERY - SOMERSET REGIONAL ART GALLERY
In 2022 I was approached by Rachel Arndt, then Curator of The Condensery - Somerset Regional Art Gallery in Queensland to advise and help program a months-long youth engagement project for local young people. The project was part of the broader program supporting the exhibition Things I want to say (6 May - 16 July 2023) curated by Arndt and Imogen Dixon-Smith, and culminated in a one-day public program on Saturday 3 July.
Things I want to say brought together six emerging artists from across the country - Jordan Azcune, Tyza Hart, Dylan Mooney, Luce Nguyen-Hunt, Gutinarra Yunupingu & Justine Youssef - whose practices negotiate identity in contemporary Australia.
Working with artists including Sidney McMahon and Zenus Moonbeam, we developed a series of scaffolded workshops for local teens that ran in the months leading up to the final public program, using the ideas in the exhibition and the idea of an Art Party as a point of creative departure.
The program aimed to encourage community building and confidence engaging with The Condensery as a welcome space for young people.
The culminating Art Party included a series of activities, artist-led workshops and performances all directly inspired by the works in Things I want to say.
Photos: Jim Filmer, courtesy of The Condensery - Somerset Regional Art Gallery.
PAST PROGRAM: YOUNG CREATIVES - MCA AUSTRALIA
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART AUSTRALIA
MCA GENEXT Primavera, September 2017. Photo Jacquie Manning. Courtesy MCA Australia
From 2017 - 2021 I worked as the Young Creatives Coordinator 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 is a diverse group of 25 young people aged 14-21 who are 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 audience.
The largest of these programs is GENEXT, the MCA’s flagship youth-led event, which, had welcomed over 32,000 young people since launching in 2005.
I was responsible for every aspect of the program, including:
Recruitment & training
Pastoral care
Program development & delivery
Digital content production
Partnership development & management
Reporting & evaluation
Budget management & administration
Young Guides Lukas & Soo-Min interviewing artist Pipilotti Rist for MCA.com.au
Major milestones during my time included:
The establishment and delivery of GENEXT Goes West, 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 (2018) and Bankstown Arts Centre (2020)
The co-design, research & writing of 'By Young People For Young People: A Report on the Impact of GENEXT' in partnership with research agency Patternmakers (2019)
The integration of Young Creative programs into museum-wide events including the annual public program Conversation Starters (2017-2019), and International Women’s Day 2021.
‘Strikers! Youth leading change’ panel, 2019 Conversation Starters. Photograph: Jodie Barker. Courtesy: MCA Australia
The production of significant digital content by young people for mca.com.au 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)
And GENEXT Goes Online, a first-time digital only event produced, curated and hosted by the MCA Young Creatives (May 2020) inspired by the 22nd Biennale of Sydney and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. GGO featuring live-streamed performances, panel talks & activities, including an Auslan visual story-telling workshop, plus curated digital content including zines, VR Spotlight talks and quizzes.
PAST PROJECT: KALDOR PUBLIC ART PROJECTS
PILOT REGIONAL YOUTH ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM, PROJECT 30 - MARINA ABRAMOVIC: IN RESIDENCE, 2015
In 2014 I was approached to help Kaldor Public Art Projects devise, fundraise for and deliver a pilot regional engagement education project in concert with their 30th Project with internationally acclaimed performance artist Marina Abramovic.
Having successfully attracted $25,000 of federal arts funding, the pilot project was rolled out between February and July 2015. Working in partnership with Dubbo Regional Gallery, I developed a program of informal learning for nine local young people with theatre director Imara Savage and artist Lottie Consalvo, that explored performance and public art.
The program included workshops, discussions, professional development opportunities and a public program offer in Sydney and Dubbo. It culminated with a one-day exhibition of performance works at the Western Plains Cultural Centre on 26 July 2015 that were developed over the course of the 11 weeks.
A full summary of the Project can be read on the Kaldor Public Art Project blog here and the images and information from the workshop weekends can be found on the Project’s Tumblr site:
http://kaldorpublicartprojects.tumblr.com/
Other articles written about the Project for Museums and Galleries NSW can be found at the following:
http://mgnsw.org.au/sector/news/kaldor-pilots-regional-education-project/
http://mgnsw.org.au/sector/news/lessons-learnt-kaldor-progress-report/
PAST PROJECT: LOUIS VUITTON YOUNG ARTS PROJECT, LONDON
The Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project was a partnership between Louis Vuitton and five of London’s leading art institutions between 2010-2013: Hayward Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, South London Gallery, Tate Britain and Whitechapel Gallery. Led by the South London Gallery, this arts and education programme gave young Londoners from across the city unique access to the museum directors and curators, artists and collectors who shape the British contemporary art scene.
LVYAP Summer Academy 2011, The Academy of Youth Mythology. Photo: Richard Eaton / REcreativeUK.com
The Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project (LVYAP) became an ambitious network for young people’s groups aged 13-25 from each of the five institutions. The young people collectively visited exhibitions at the five partner institutions, where they had exclusive tours and unprecedented access to the inner workings of the art world.
REcreativeUK.com when it first launched in 2011.
LVYAP participants were also invited to peer-led creative sessions and site visits where they had the opportunity to meet artists and curators. Through additional focused workshops the young people devised and designed a website that launched in 2011, called REcreativeUK.com, for which I was the Young People’s Online Editor from 2011-2013.
The website launched as an online community and resource for young people interested in all aspects of the contemporary art world. In its first iteration it existed as an open platform where any young person could share and showcase their work, access resources, gain real world opportunities and get feedback on their work from both peers and art world professionals.
Each year of the LVYAP, up to 60 young people from across each of the partner galleries were chosen to attend an intensive, five-day Summer Academy, the first of which took place in August 2010 at the Royal Academy Schools and Louis Vuitton New Bond Street. The Academies offered behind-the-scenes visits to galleries and conservation studios; talks by artists, curators and critics; and creative workshops and outcomes. In 2011 the Academy took place at the Southbank Centre and explored ideas of live art. In 2012 it was hosted by artist duo Elmgreen and Dragset, who inspired a week looking at public art (after their Fourth Plinth Commission), which culminated in four temporary pop up public art sculptures that were accessible to the public.
The Academy Goes Public is a film I produced in my capacity as SLG Young People’s Online Editor. It documents the 2012 Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project Summer Academy.
The film was made by Gordon Beswick for REcreativeUK.com.