l “I go to seek a Great Perhaps”: engaging youth audiences

“I go to seek a Great Perhaps”: engaging youth audiences

AOIBHIE McCARTHY

1. This article is adapted from a presentation made at the Irish Museums Association Education and Outreach Forum on 27 June 2014, Dublin. 2. Arts Audiences (2012) Arts Attendance in Ireland 2012. Accessed December 14, 2012, from http://artsaudiences.ie/wpcontent/uploads/2012/11/Arts-Att endance-in-Ireland-2012.pdf , 18 3. Mulhearn, D. (2010) Teenage Kicks. Museums Journal 110: 34 4. United Nations (1948) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved March 13, 2014, from http://www.un.org/en/document s/udhr/ 5. Council of National Cultural Institutions. (2004) Policy Framework for Education, Community, Outreach: Policy Framework for Education, Community, Outreach. Dublin, 14

Introduction1

Ireland has one of the youngest populations in the European union and yet, young people form just 10% of Irish exhibition audiences2. The received wisdom, Mulhearn tells us, is simply that ‘“museums and teenagers don’t mix”3

As Article 27 of the united Nation’s universal Declaration of Human Rights states, everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”4. In facilitating the exercise of that right, The Council of National Cultural Institutions’ Policy Framework for Education, Community and Outreach acknowledges that, as publicly funded institutions, we have a “particular responsibility in respect of children and young people”5. This research study interrogates the received wisdom – the notion that teenagers are a lost generation to museums and galleries – to explore the potential of such institutions in enabling young people to become active custodians of Irish cultural life.

This practice-based research study, conducted through the Shinnors Curatorial Scholarship, involved the author, as Curator of Education, working with young people from 12-23 years in Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA), to examine the impact of a variety of formats for effective youth audience engagement. This article will present the findings arising from this dynamic youth programme, which culminated in The young Curatorial Programme- an exploration of the potential of youth participative practice and the involvement of young people in the curatorial process. In addition, this article will present the experiences and insights of other gallery and museum-based professionals in creating genuine access for youth audiences –examining particularly the challenges and benefits which both young people and institutions experience. This article will also present the findings of a consultative process with young people themselves in which members of The Butler Gallery kilkenny’s Red Square youth

group and Waterford young Arts Critics were invited to join LCGA’s young Curators to capture their unique insights into the barriers to access which persist for young people, the benefits they experienced through participatory practice and their recommendations for ‘youthfriendly’ culture and heritage institutions.

Youth engagement programming: the professionals’ perspective

A sample of nine gallery, museum and arts centre-based curators and educators, in national and regional institutions across Ireland were interviewed, as part of this research process, in relation to their institutions’ youth audience profile, their provision for young people, the challenges and benefits they have experienced in engaging this audience sector and the benefits and barriers they felt young people experience in engaging with cultural institutions.

Interviewees all indicated that their engagement of youth audiences was a mutually beneficial process –they perceived it as an investment in their institutions’ future survival by cultivating new audiences and practitioners, promoting positive peer-to-peer word-of-mouth marketing, enabling institutions to stay ‘in touch’ with popular culture and cultivate fresh insights and interpretations into their collections and exhibitions.

Particularly in cases where the institution provided long term youth programmes, interviewees suggested that, in their experience, young people derived significant benefits in relation to personal development, skills development and positive attitudinal changes towards arts and heritage institutions. However, it must be noted that these reported benefits are largely based on interviewees’ perceptions of young people’s experiences. Significant discrepancies between interviewees’ perceptions of youth audiences and the findings from consultation with young people themselves reveal the

Fig 1. Brian’s Swing installation Photo by Siobhán O’Reilly, Limerick City Gallery of Art, 2013

need for institutions to engage in regular audience surveying and profiling. For example, the top three most frequently identified benefits of museum and gallery attendance, noted by young people themselves, were not mentioned by any of the interviewees. To create genuine access for an audience requires accurate knowledge of that audiencehaving a clear understanding of youth audiences’ needs in relation to our institutions, particularly the ways in which they benefit from engagement, will enable us to more effectively provide for young people and advocate for resource allocation.

According to interviewees, the persistent challenges young people face in engaging with cultural institutions are practical barriers such as lack of awareness, distance and demanding schedules and psychological barriers such as perceived elitism, intimidating architecture and security measures. For museum and gallery professionals, communicating effectively with and promoting awareness amongst youth audiences was frequently identified as a significant challenge, as was the lack of human resources to support youth engagement programmes. Interestingly, lack of funding was only mentioned by one educator to be a barrier for their institution in creating better provision for youth audiences. However, the establishment of partnerships with other cultural and youth organisations emerged as an effective means of sharing staff, resources and expertise to make youth programming more labour and cost effective for individual organisations.

The provision of second level school tours is the primary form of engaging youth audiences with the majority of institutions consulted, which commands significant resource allocation. ultimately, in all but two cases, there was little evidence to suggest that school tours were effective in translating this experience into return visits and future independent engagement by young people. While school tours are undoubtedly effective in terms of ensuring that the otherwise nonattendee or infrequent young visitor crosses the threshold at some point in their lives, this finding in relation to the value and impact of school tours ought to problematize the persistent widespread dominance of this format as the lens through which most of our young people will experience our institutions- particularly where resource allocation is being deflected away from approaches which have been found to be more effective amongst our youth audiences. The development and availability of curriculum-focused resources and activities, however, which tailor the visitor experience to their studies and interests –such

as exhibition response worksheets, pre-engagement packs for teachers, Leaving Certificate revision courses and Transition year work experience placements – were seen, in both the experience of individual interviewees and that of the author in Limerick City Gallery of Art, to be a more effective method of engaging youth audiences through their formal education.

Reaching and attracting independent young visitors was acknowledged by all of the interviewees consulted to be generally more challenging than other audience groups –they indicated that in order to effectively engage independent young visitors, there is a need for targeted provision for this audience which is tailored to their specific needs and rooted in their interests. Within the institutions consulted, for example, practical workshops in animation, street art and film enabled young people to engage with and explore collections creatively through popular art forms which appeal to them –often resulting in the production of peer-led resources, such as videos about the collection, by young people for young people.

In Limerick City Gallery of Art, the author teamed with local youthorientated festivals to share resources and, significantly, to identify positive youth role models within the community –those elusive ‘cool people’ who have the necessary klout to engage our traditionally hardto-reach audiences and signpost the way for young people across our thresholds in an ongoing capacity. For example, LCGA partnered with Outbreak zombie Festival to facilitate a movie special-effects artistry workshop in which young people explored essentially traditional sculpture and painting techniques, applied through an area of popular interest. As part of our partnership with Limerick’s Make a Move Hip Hop Festival and its Street Art programme –LCGA acted as a venue but more significantly as an advocate in brokering with Limerick Council to make derelict sites available to prominent international street artists such as MASER and RASk, to work with local young people in creating urban community murals. In order to open up a meaningful dialogue with young people in our community and ultimately impact their perceptions of this institution, it was necessary to first move beyond our walls to help them change the writing on theirs.

While once-off events and short term practice-based programmes of this nature were seen to be effective in terms of engaging larger numbers of traditional non-attendees or infrequent young visitors and

6. Fogelman, P. (2012) Innovative public programming of the future. In The challenges facing museums on-site and online in the 21st century and Future forecasting: The challenges facing museums and cultural institutions. Proceedings of the roundtable and symposium, The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 26 7. Lenz Kothe, E. (2012) Beyond Art Waitressing: Meaningful Engagement in Interactive Art Galleries. Art Education 65 (4): 24 8. Lenz Kothe, E. (2012) ‘Beyond Art Waitressing: Meaningful Engagement in Interactive Art Galleries. Art Education, 65 (4), 21 9. Fogelman, P. (2012) Innovative public programming of the future. In The challenges facing museums on-site and online in the 21st century and Future forecasting: The challenges facing museums and cultural institutions. Proceedings of the roundtable and symposium, The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 26 10. O’Neill, M. (2005) What would museums be like if they took young people seriously? In Museums, galleries and young people: Are museums doing enough to attract younger audiences? Symposium proceedings, Dublin, 4th November 2005 The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 43 positively impacting their perception of the institution, the ongoing surveying processes conducted as part of the LCGA youth programme indicated that such activities are less effective in terms of cultivating future independent attendees than long term youth engagement programmes, in which young people have the opportunity to engage with the institution through participative practice. As Fogelman argues, this generation is part of a “larger ‘participatory economy’ in which social connection eclipses consumption”6 and young people need to have a sense that they can impact the experience that they can have in order to fully engage. Engaging youth audiences through participative practice means involving young people in the integral decision making processes of the institution such as devising and facilitating audience programming, developing audience resources, curating exhibitions and acting in an ongoing advisory capacity.

The young curatorial programme: participative practice and peer audiences

As Lenz kothe argues, the adoption of participatory practices in the engagement of youth audiences is part of a wider “fundamental shift in the museum field towards participatory educational practice”7 whereby “visitors are essential partners in making meaning”8. young people particularly, as Fogelman suggests, place “value on a more immersive and interactive experience than is possible through mere observation”9 . youth participative practice is premised upon the assumption that youth-led programming in museums and galleries impacts positively on their peer’s propensity to engage –the assumption is that the involvement of young people in such processes automatically ensures universal appeal for their peers. In developing a programme of participatory engagement in which a group of local young people mount an exhibition of the LCGA Collection, by young people for young people with young people, the aim was not only to measure the impact of participative practice on young participants themselves but critically –to measure the impact of youth participative programming on peer audiences.

Cultural institutions “taking young people seriously”, according to O’Neill involves “consulting young people about what interests them, representing the culture and experience of young people, past and present, in displays and temporary exhibits and ensuring the core displays are designed for young people and their parents/carers as well as for other audiences”10 .

The young Curatorial Programme aimed to act upon all of these recommendations by bringing together a group of young people to curate an exhibition of LCGA’s Permanent Collection which resonated with the culture and experience of young people. Over a two month period, seven recruits between the ages of 14 and 20, self-elected to come together twice weekly to curate this exhibition. In order to enable participants to freely express their opinions and work as a team, the programme began with a series of ice breaking and team building activities. A series of initial mind mapping discussion sessions exploring themes and ideas pertinent to youth experience formed the basis of a preliminary selection from the Permanent Collection by the author. As there are over 830 works in the LCGA Collection, a preliminary selection was made by the author, in order to avoid overwhelming the participants. However, from that point on, participants were supported in assuming full ownership of the project as a team of young Curators.

Initial training sessions with both the author, as their main facilitator, and invited facilitators, focused on developing participants’ visual literacy and expressive skills. During this process, the young Curators made visits to other local museums and galleries to compare and contrast curatorial approaches. Following these sessions, participants took the lead in selecting, researching and justifying the inclusion of artworks within the team, composing artwork labels, planning the hang and installation process, advertising the exhibition through local press, maintaining a blog to track this process and selecting a title –‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps’, the last words of François Rabelais, a French Renaissance humanist –a title which captured the potential of this process so eloquently and demonstrated that when young people are genuinely empowered and given a public platform- they will not waste the opportunity. As a result of their participation, each of the young Curators developed new skills such as enhanced visual literacy, verbal and written presentation skills and the ability to work well within a team to meet tight deadlines. In terms of personal development, the programme saw many of the participants grow exponentially in terms of their self-confidence. For three of the participants particularly, their experience as a young Curator reportedly galvanised their interest in the visual arts and they have now gone on to pursue third level studies in the area.

In order to gauge the impact of youth curatorial programming on peer audiences, a sample of young visitors between 13 and 18 years of age

11. O’Neill, M. (2005) What would museums be like if they took young people seriously? In Museums, galleries and young people: Are museums doing enough to attract younger audiences? Symposium proceedings, Dublin, 4th November 2005 The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 37 were surveyed. 58% of respondents indicated that the involvement of young people in the curatorial process would make them more likely to attend an exhibition. Of those respondents, 89% felt that the involvement in young people in the curatorial process, increased their enjoyment of this exhibition, 89% stated that it helped them to engage with the artworks in the exhibition, 85% indicated that it made them more interested in the artists/ artworks the young people selected, 81% said that it made them feel more at ease in the exhibition space, 85% said it made them feel more at ease in the exhibition space, 86% indicated that the involvement of young people in curating this exhibition made them feel more comfortable expressing their ideas and opinions about the artworks and made them feel more valued as a young visitor and, crucially, 85% of respondents stated that the involvement of young people in curating this exhibition made them feel more inclined to visit this gallery again. It is therefore clearly evident that youth participation in the curatorial process does have a positive impact on peer audience experience and propensity to engage.

Creating youth-friendly cultural institutions through consultation

Consultation with audiences ought to be an integral aspect of exhibition and programming development, particularly in relation to young audiences who, O’ Neill states, “need to have a sense that they can influence the experience they can have” in order to develop a sense of ownership of cultural institutions11 In order to capture the unique insights of young people who had engaged with their local cultural institution through participative programmes, members of The Butler Gallery kilkenny’s Red Square youth group and Waterford young Arts Critics were invited to meet with the LCGA young Curators, during their exhibition run, to discuss their experiences and recommendations for youth- friendly museums and galleries. Through a series of workshops and focus groups, participants identified what they felt were most significant barriers to engagement for themselves and their peers, as well as the most important benefits they experienced and which they felt their peers stood to gain from engagement with museums and galleries.

The most significant challenges facing young people in accessing and engaging with cultural institutions, as identified by participants, were largely practical barriers such as a lack of time, distance and availability of transport. Participants suggested that a lack of awareness amongst

young people of museums and galleries impacted on youth audience attendance. The two most significant psycho-social deterrents for young people, according to participants, were the ‘language barrier’, lofty and impenetrable language employed in exhibitions material which made young people feel ‘locked out’ and the ‘atmosphere’ in museums and galleries which they suggested could often be intimidating for young people: “it’s so quiet and you’re coming into a room and there might be people there who are ten years older than you, I don’t know- you could assume that they’re artists or curators and you kind of feel as if, you know, why are you in the room, you know nothing, it’s not really your place”.

The most significant benefits which participants derived from engaging through their respective programmes were in terms of their personal development. The programmes, they stated, had given them the opportunity to express themselves and develop confidence in doing so, to try new things, to socialise with different people and to relax and enjoy themselves, in a manner not available to them through formal education. Their programmes enabled them to develop new skills –ranging from written and verbal presentation skills to project management to blogging – and enhance their CVs. They felt that the opportunity to learn more about arts, culture and heritage made them feel more confident about visiting and engaging with cultural spaces. The findings of surveying processes revealed that while once-off youth workshops and events are more successful in engaging the first-time or infrequent young visitor with the institution, long term programmes are more successful in translating their participation into future regular independent museum and gallery attendance.

The final activity of the forum asked participants to consider what would be the features of an ‘ideal gallery or museum’ for young people, the qualities which render a cultural venue ‘youth-friendly’. Participants were encouraged to use Limerick City Gallery of Art as a basis for a critique. Their resultant insights and recommendations are as follows:

Fig 2. Participants suggested there needs to be better orientation Original Artwork by Jacob Stack, 2014

Youth- friendly environment . . .

The everyday operations of the gallery and museum render such spaces familiar for professionals and we often are desensitised to the potentially disorientating aspects of the architecture itself and curatorial devices. In order for young people to feel comfortable and welcome in a space, participants suggested, there needs to be better orientation –a clear layout and guidance as to which parts of the exhibition spaces and building are available to them.

“Sometimes when you come in, you’re not sure what places are off limits. . . it would need to be really clearly marked what you’re allowed to do and what are restricted areas because I get that with nearly every gallery I’m in, like – am I allowed to actually enter.”

Simple interventions and signage, they suggested, make the space more navigable for young people – “even an arrow pointing in would have been so awesome.” Friendly and approachable staff, they suggested, were key in the orientation process. Participants recommended that in order to be welcoming, exhibition spaces needed to be comfortable – comfort, in their opinions included “wide open spaces” which were bright and warm, with the availability of facilities.

Youth friendly language . . .

The academic language used in exhibitions and associated material was identified during earlier sessions as a significant deterrent for young people. Participants advocated the approach adopted by the young Curators’ exhibition of welcoming in wider audiences through incorporating the viewpoints of young people and other visitors. They noted how the labels in the exhibition, written by young people with their interpretation of the artwork, had effectively engaged them with the exhibition

“It can be cool to have layman terms because not everyone understands art terms like tone and colour so it’s kind of cool to have just ordinary explanations that everyone can kind of get to grips with.”

Youth friendly marketing . . .

Although word of mouth marketing proved most effective amongst participants themselves, with 46% joining their respective

programmes as a result of a peer-to-peer recommendation, participants argued that print media marketing is most effective and that such marketing, in order to engage wider audiences, would be most beneficially distributed in “public places like TESCO” –to be considered a natural part of everyday life by young people, marketing must appear, naturally, in their everyday lives.

The findings of a focus group held by Irish youth website Spunout.ie in june 2013 indicated that young people were most responsive to wordof-mouth marketing amongst their peers and, to a lesser extent, print-based marketing such as flyers, posters and local newspapers. These findings are consistent with the experiences of many of the interviewees who acknowledged that word-of-mouth often proved most effective amongst this age group: “It is just getting the word out there, because its word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth, it’s all about friends bringing friends. . . We Facebook, we tweet, we website, I send out an e-shot as well but what they’ve said to me is we don’t look at their emails and that’s the truth of it.”

As the participants of the Arts Council of Ireland’s ‘Arts- youthCulture: FyI’ youth consultation argued: “young people are seen as being part of the youTube generation, but that it is a misperception that this is the only way to communicate with young people.”12

Fig 3. Participants identified varied exhibitions programmes as important Original Artwork by Jacob Stack, 2014

12. The Arts Council of Ireland (2010). Art-youth-culture: FYI. Retrieved September 20, 2013, from http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/areasof-work/actions/FYI.aspx , p.26.

Youth friendly exhibitions and programming. . .

In both the artwork/artefacts and the subject matter explored, participants identified having a varied exhibitions programme was important to engage youth audiences. They also identified a need for clarity in the subject matter and issues explored by exhibitions through the language used – to this end, participants recommended that relevant speakers, such as artists and historians, be invited to discuss their work with young people.

In order to engage youth audiences and communicate that this is a space that is for young people, participants argued for the creation of a designated physical ‘creative space’ within museums and galleries for

young people to engage with. One participant suggested that this could be as simple as a wall space to which young people could contribute their responses to artefacts or their own artwork. Participants also advocated for galleries creating opportunities for young artists to exhibit in order to engage younger audiences by visibly supporting young talent.

The opportunities which programmes such as the LCGA young Curators and The Butler Gallery’s Red Square presented to young people to engage their peers through their involvement in the curatorial process were lauded by participants, who advocated for the wider adoption of youth participative curatorial practice in museums and galleries’ regular exhibitions programming.

Youth friendly atmosphere . . .

Fig 4. The importance of having friendly and approachable staff was identified. Original Artwork by Jacob Stack, 2014 “A young person would walk into the gallery and just see all white and pristine, they think they shouldn’t be here if they’re not dressed to the nines and all this stuff, they think it should only be like old rich people should only be in a gallery rather than them.”

The “aura of exclusivity inscribed in the museum walls” (McClellan, 2003 p.2) is something which participants suggested that youth audiences are sensitive to and something which presents a barrier particularly for young people, for whom feelings of inadequacy or being ‘out of place’ will arise, as this participant identifies. The importance of having friendly and approachable staff was identified as being key in cultivating a friendly and welcoming atmosphere and challenging persistent perceptions of elitism which present barriers.

Conclusion

In order for youth audience engagement programmes, particularly youth participatory practice, to be sustainable, Fogelman argues that there is a need for the structure and format of such engagement to develop from “special event-based projects requiring new improvisational work groups and distinct, often unsustainable financial

support”13 into a fully operationalised aspect of the museum and gallery experience. To achieve this, she argues, there is a need to explore, as the LCGA case study does- “incremental innovation sustained over time that involves visitors in an ongoing participatory relationship with the museum” – by institutionalising experimentation in this way through our youngest visitors, there is potential to substantially shift the nature of wider audience engagement.13

Aoibhie McCarthy, a former Shinnors Scholar, is Education & Development Officer of The People’s Museum Limerick and Visual Art Curator of Galway Fringe Festival.

13. Fogelman, P. (2012) Innovative public programming of the future. In The challenges facing museums on-site and online in the 21st century and Future forecasting: The challenges facing museums and cultural institutions. Proceedings of the roundtable and symposium, The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 31