Writings, News
Jo Higgins
Routledge publication: Youth Programs in Art ...
Routledge publication: Youth Programs in Art Museums - An International Perspective
Writings
Jo Higgins
Art Guide Australia: Field Notes. A Grassroots ...
Art Guide Australia: Field Notes. A Grassroots Approach to Public Art
Events, Review, News
Jo Higgins
Berlin trip: Connected Audiences Conference and ...
Berlin trip: Connected Audiences Conference and some Art, Art, Art....
Writings, News
Jo Higgins
Art Guide Australia: Home Truths - feature story
Art Guide Australia: Home Truths - feature story
News, Writings
Jo Higgins
Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published
Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published

education

NAVA Educator Guide: Introduction to Committing to Meaningful First Nations Projects in Education Settings

This was a small but really meaningful project I had the privilege to contribute to at the end of last year. I was asked to edit a new education guide for the National Association for the Visual Arts, written and illustrated by the brilliant Dr Emma Hicks in consultation with Dr Christine Evans.

As NAVA says, “The guide offers easy-to-follow processes, protocols and good practices for engaging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander artists when working with students in visual art-making activities and programs.”

You can read more about the guide and download it for free here.

OTHER POSTS

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Routledge publication: Youth Programs in Art Museums - An International Perspective

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The long tail of my 2018 Churchill Fellowship continues to unfurl in both learnings and opportunities.

18 months ago I was approached by the editors of a then-forthcoming Routledge publication gathering international perspectives on youth programs in art museums. They were looking for an Australian contributor and the always generous Betsy Gibbons at ICA Boston, who I had the immense privilege to meet and learn from during my Fellowship, sent them in my direction. And now, it's out in the world.

My contribution, "Where to From Here? Reflections on Future-Proofing People, Programs, and Museums" picks up on many of the same threads I had started to pull in my essay "The Museum as a Cowboy Place" for Artlink magazine’s Hyphen issue last Summer, expertly edited by Ava Lacoon, Claire Osborn-Li and Hen Vaughan.

It reiterates the learnings and provocations I (hope I) offered at the Connected Audiences Conference in Berlin in May with the brilliant Yael Filipovic. It's a reflection on the last nearly 10 years of work, research, care and collaboration - as well as some of the programs I've had the privilege to steer, including the gone-but-not-forgotten MCA GENEXT at MCA Australia and the also-now-gone-but-also-not-forgotten National Young Writers Program at the National Gallery of Australia.

It's probably a more hopeful essay than I actually feel right now but looking at the book's contents page - noting so many experts and champions (including quite a few others I also got to meet back in 2019, thanks to my Churchill) - I feel really proud of this body of work and grateful to have had the opportunity to make the case (again) for the importance of youth arts programming in and for museums, as well as for young people, now and into the future.

Also, I love that the photo I snapped in a hurry during an especially chaotic GENEXT 'fridge poetry x music lyric mashup' workshop inspired by the art of Jenny Watson back in 2018, that I included as my essay's illustration, inspired the title of co-editor Susan McCullough's introduction.

What we had together was indeed gorgeous.

OTHER POSTS

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Publication day! Museum Teen Program How-To Kit

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IT’S HERE!

The Museum Teen Program How-To-Kit by the Walker Art Center has been published, which includes my essay “Heartbreakers and Troublemakers: How to Navigate, Embrace & Ultimately Survive Disruption.”

This has been such a long-time coming but I’m so proud to be part of the publication and to have had the opportunity to learn from such extraordinary humans and educators as Nisa Mackie and Simona Zappas. 

A full, free PDF of the book will be available later in the year.

You can read more about the book here.

OTHER POSTS

National Gallery of Australia: Digital Young Writers Mentorship

I am incredibly excited to be working with the National Gallery of Australia this year to pilot a Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program.

This program will pair five, young, aspiring arts writers from across the country with mentors including Jane O’Sullivan, Nur Shkembi, Andy Butler, Tian Zhang and Tristen Harwood for a series of masterclasses, industry insight sessions and paid writing briefs, alongside their 1:1 mentoring.

In consultation with the Gallery, the mentorship program has been designed to address identified challenges facing young people looking to enter the sector, including a lack of paid professional development opportunities; the need for supported communities of like-minded creatives; as well as platforms for their voices to be heard in dialogue with major institutions. 

Applications have opened and you can read more about the project on ArtsHub here.

OTHER POSTS

Educating People Like Us

Since late 2014 I’ve been working with UNSW Galleries as an education consultant to develop a series of educational resources for their touring exhibition People Like Us. It’s just opened at UNSW Galleries and will set off on a 15 stop national tour from January 2016.

Su-Mei Tse, Sound for an Insomniac, 2007

I’ve just written an article about the process for Museums & Galleries New South Wales which you can read here.

OTHER POSTS

I live and work on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people and acknowledge their unbroken connection to this Country. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders, past and present, because this always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.