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

Events

Teen Program Symposium: Walker Art Center

Last month I was lucky enough to travel to Minneapolis to attend the Museum Teen Programs Symposium and launch of the Walker Art Center’s Teen Programs How-To Kit, that I was a contributor for.

This professional development opportunity was made possible with support from Create NSW through a quick response grant (the recognition of the value of these kinds of opportunities for individuals is honestly huge.)

SYMPOSIUM OPENING NIGHT:

The first night at the Walker featured an energising, provocative, brilliant in conversation that was moderated by the Walker’s Youth Programs Manager Simona Zappas. We heard from cultural anthropologist and learning scientist Dr Mimi Ito, Professor Julio Cammarato from the University of Arizona, whose research focuses on participatory action research with Latinx students; and Stephen Kwok, the curator of public engagement at Dia Art Foundation in New York.

They reflected on their own practices and questions including:

  • How can staff working with teens in out-of-school settings respond to the complex needs of youth with empowering programming?

  • What does this look like in institutions with colonial histories?

They were all very clear that they were speaking in their capacities as researchers, academics, museum workers and educators and not FOR young people. This assertion and clarity around ideas of authorship, co-creation, agency and transparency were a recurring conversation point across the whole weekend.

Some of the many, many things I took away from their reflections and insights included:

  • The idea of cultivating not just young creatives by civic participants

  • The importance of opacity and the right not to be understood (in direct contrast to the expectation of transparency)

  • Ideas of connected learning that centre young people’s ideas, community and cultural wealth

  • Recognising ‘funds of knowledge’ and assets within communities, including cultural practices which can challege existing or dominant ways of doing or understanding

  • The importance of ‘creative resistance’ in visioning and dreaming of a new future in the face of current systems of oppression

  • The idea of creating environments, not programs (or pipelines) with different spaces for different exchanges and space to take risks

  • The importance of young people being able to bring their whole selves to space (which can mean free time, snacks, intergenerational friendships - the HOMAGO model of hanging out, messing around, geeking out)

  • Using the poetics of longer-term looking at art: the importance of slowing down, encouraging longer and more sustained engagement and re-looking

  • The idea of relational infrastructure and the flow or exchange of power: what does it look like for power to be expressed through a youth program?

  • Acknowledging that power does not flow equitably between young people and museums but what do we dismiss as interruption or distraction within a program or space that is actually an expression of power?

  • The power of young people and youth participatory research - the importance of that critical perception and different perceptions (itself another form of power)

  • That adults are usually the problem, not the young people…

  • The ways mobile phones and technology have revolutionised young people’s power, with their communication not as surveilled - that as other public spaces for communing are closed off to them, gaming, texting, social media are alternate spaces for gathering

  • The idea of the educator as translator

  • Building shared purpose is key to changing structures

  • The value of space, unknowing, opacity and not having to constantly prove or demonstrate impact

  • The importance of the question (for programs, institutions, young people) - working towards understanding, solutions, transformation

  • The fact that adults need to be educated before you engage young people!

WORKSHOPS & SITE VISITS:

On the Saturday, we spent the day interrogating ideas of invisible power and the role and impact of group dynamics through a workshop facilitated by Stephen Kwok.

It was fascinating to really observe how even simple changes to a space through things like lighting and furniture rearrangement could radically change the group dynamics and the embodied experience of being in these spaces - safe, exposed, invisible, comfortable, playful.

In the afternoon we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see the extraordinary exhibition, In Our Hands: Native Photography, 1890 to Now

And then on the Sunday, we all hopped on an iconic yellow school bus for a series of visits to Spark'd Studios, Juxtaposition Arts, and the Saint Paul Neighborhood Network.

These site visits and conversations brought back so many memories of my Churchill Fellowship experience but it was so valuable to do them this time as part of a group of educators from across North America.

This professional development opportunity was supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

OTHER POSTS

Art Party at The Condensery

Last weekend saw the culminating public program for ‘Things I Want To Say’ at The Condensery - Somerset Regional Art Gallery.

This has been a 12-month long program that I’ve had the absolute joy of co-developing and helping to realise. You can read more about my involvement here.

Some photos from the weekend below:

Photos: Jim Filmer. Courtesy The Condensery - Somerset Regional Art Gallery

OTHER POSTS

Panel talk: Australian Museums & Galleries Association National Conference

On Tuesday I chaired a panel talk at the annual Australian Museums and Galleries Association national conference, which is being held in Newcastle, on Worimi Country, this year.

The panel talk was a reflection on last year’s pilot Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program, which I developed and ran for the National Gallery of Australia.

I was so grateful to be joined by curator and academic Nur Shkembi, one of the mentors on the program, mentee and emerging curator and arts writer Jade Irvine and the Gallery’s Tim Fairfax Digital Learning Manager, Julia Mendel.

Over the course of an hour we talked about what the project entailed – the inherent risks and rewards in piloting a program designed to support and elevate critical young voices, what it set out to achieve, the challenges, and what participating in it has left us all reflecting on.

You can watch the panel talk here.

OTHER POSTS

,

Exhibition essay: Topographies of painting - Gregory Hodge, Sullivan + Strumpf

,

Several months ago, Paris-based, Australian painter Gregory Hodge commissioned me to write an essay responding to his latest body of work, which features in his new exhibition Figures, Lights and Landscapes, which has just opened at Sullivan + Strumpf in Sydney.

The invitation - and opportunity - to respond instinctively, creatively and historically to the many layers of meaning in his work was such a (terrifying) gift.

You can read my essay here.

And on Saturday 30 July I’ll be in conversation with Greg at the Sullivan + Strumpf for the opening, alongside artist Julia Gutman and curator Elyse Goldfinch.

OTHER POSTS

A New Approach: Enduring Foundations, Bold Ambitions

Last week I was invited by the Australian arts and culture think-tank A New Approach to join the panel of their latest webinar. It was an invitation to share my insights into young people and the arts and what arts and culture policy settings Australia needs for the 21st Century ahead of the launch of their latest Analysis Paper.

I am a huge fan of the research and advocacy they’ve undertaken since launching earlier this year and their Insight Report into the attitudes of young middle Australians towards the arts was especially galvanising. Essential reading for anyone doubting the extraordinary sensitivity and understanding that young people have about the role that the arts can play in their lives.

According to ANA: “Australians are increasingly reporting that arts and culture are a critical and valued part of their life and are looking for policy leadership that recognises this. We also know that Australia’s arts and culture sector is at a crossroads. We now have a unique opportunity to shape the change being driven by Covid-19 and use strategic investment to transform and embolden our cultural landscape to serve our contemporary public.”

This Public Webinar was a first step in asking: So, how do we do this?

I had the immense privilege to join Rupert Myer AO, ANA’s Director Kate Fielding, Professor John Daley AM and Cara Kirkwood to reflect on this question and the insights we took from their latest paper.

Clockwise from top left: Kate Fielding, CEO, A New Approach; Cara Kirkwood, Head of Indigenous Engagement & Strategy, National Gallery of Australia; Professor John Daley AM; me.

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.