Leaving the National Portrait Gallery

After nearly 9 years, I have left the National Portrait Gallery as the Young People's Programmes Manager. It's a great place to work, with great people and great portraits! I've been reflecting on my time there and have three particular highlights:

• Firstly the Youth Forum who are truly the voice of the Young People's Programme. I've been lucky to work with some of them for 3 or more years. Recently I emailed all past members to find out what they've been up to since leaving the Gallery. I've had some fantastic responses and one of the first members Sam said "Replacing Rachel will be some task as she was very passionate and cool!" I am very flattered.
• Secondly interventions into the Gallery spaces to showcase young people's talents resulting from projects at the Gallery. These have included dance, fashion shows, spoken word, vjing and music performances. My favourites were the dance projects with amazing organisations like Union Dance, Dance Physics and Siobhan Davies where the culminations brought the Gallery spaces alive.
• Thirdly and most importantly to me have been the projects carried out with hard to reach young people, or those not in education employment or training (NEET). When I first started at the Gallery I carried out outreach work in youth centres consulting young people who wouldn't usually visit the Gallery to find out what might interest them to come. This led to working with a number of youth organisations within an easy travel distance to the Gallery to pilot some sessions, both outreach and onsite, with the aim to then apply for external funding. Following this pilot I ran four annual projects, with photographer Marysa Dowling, for Teenage Mums based in Westminster to attend. I worked closely with Westminster Youth Service and their Children's Centres, and the last two years of the project were funded by Westminster City Council. Around the Gallery's Gay Icons exhibition I also worked with artists Sadie Lee and Tim Redfern with 3 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) youth groups across London leading to a celebratory event at the Gallery, My Icons. The learning from all of these projects fed into a funding bid resulting in the Gallery obtaining 3 years of money from the Dorset Foundation for a project called Domino Effect. This project was managed and delivered by my colleagues and resulted in a useful online toolkit (take a look here). I hope to work with hard to reach young people again in the future as these projects have led to my own professional learning developments as well as benefiting the participants greatly.

Van Dyck Youth Insight Tours

In my role as the Young People's Programmes Manager I have recently been managing the training of a group of eight Youth Forum members leading to them delivering public talks giving a 'Youth Insight' into Van Dyck: Transforming British Art at the National Portrait Gallery (display on until 3 January 2016). There were five training sessions with myself, an art historian, other learning staff and visitor services staff. The young people decided to work in pairs to deliver the talks.  After the first set of talks on Saturday 21 November, the Forum members said that they felt the talks flowed more than they had expected, that they were good at answering questions, and that they enjoyed the audience support. To improve they would use the props more, refer to the paintings more and try to be less nervous. We asked the audience: "Pick one thing that the Youth Forum told you today that made you look at Van Dyck in a different way." Responses included: "I learnt that Van Dyck had a star status and introduced a new style of portrait paintings showing brush strokes and more dynamic poses." The second set of talks takes place on Saturday 19 December featuring different Youth Forum members, again in pairs. The first set of talks was part of Museum Takeover Day run by Kids in Museums.

Visit the National Portrait Gallery's Van Dyck website here

A Different Game: Young people working with art and artists

I enjoyed attending the engage International Conference in Glasgow last week and meeting lots of other gallery educators and artists working with young people. The best part for me was the breakout session Geographies of Collaboration: Decoding the Hyperlocal . This was led by Andrew Vaughan, Learning Manager from from The Whitworth in Manchester, and Nicola Sim, Doctoral Researcher from Tate/The University of Nottingham, along with two young artists Jamil Keating and Patrick Farrell (aka Cave Man). Jamil and Patrick had been recruited by Andrew to map the area local to the Gallery from a young person's perspective, thinking about young people's use of public and private space. "How much do you know about the people, organisations and places on your professional doorstep? How might young, locally based artists help to sensitise us to our neighbouring environments and overlooked communities?" Their responses and the group discussion have made me rethink my local area and the people I work with, in terms of the hyperlocal. This project is part of Circuit, a National Programme for 15 - 25 year olds led by Tate and funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Check out Nicola Sim's storify here and take a look at the conference website here.

Art on The Underground Schools Project

I'm excited to be recruited by Art on the Underground as the Schools Project Manager (freelance post) for the Crafting the Line Schools Project with artist Jasleen Kaur, in relation to Underline: Art & Music for the Victoria Line. Applications are coming in from schools and we will be working with six of them across the six boroughs (Camden, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Waltham Forest and Westminster) along the Victoria line. The project will include liaising with the artist, the teachers and staff in the schools' local underground stations. The pupils' final objects will contribute towards an imaginary shop stretching the length of the Victoria line. Partners for the project are ReachOutRCA and A New Direction. 

Check out the Crafting the Line project here

National Portrait Gallery Youth Forum

As the Young People's Programmes Manager at the National Portrait Gallery, I set up and have managed the Gallery's Youth Forum for the past eight and a half years. The members recently described themselves to the new Director as  'the engine room'! They act as a peer-led advisory panel for the Gallery, being regularly consulted by internal staff as well as pro-actively hosting their own events including monthly Pick up a Pencil: Drop-in drawing sessions for ages 14-21 with a guest artist, and the annual Young People's Private View for the BP Portrait Award: Next Generation project. A small group of members have also formed a Youth Crew to document events and to participate in Teen Twitter Takeover Day. Another group are training up to deliver their own tours on Van Dyck's self-portrait and will be participating in Museum Takeover Day.

Check out the National Portrait Gallery Youth Forum Facebook here

Kids in Museums

Last month I enjoyed chairing the Kids in Museums Teen Workshop seminar day at London Zoo and also gave a presentation with some of the National Portrait Gallery Youth Forum members.

Check out Kids in Museums' storify here