MADE believes that knowledge about the kinds of careers you can find in the arts should be an essential part of every school’s careers programme. With this in mind, we brought together our experts on Youth Voice and Employability to begin building a leadership programme that would introduce young people aged 14+ to the arts & culture venues on their doorstep. Over 6 months, they will be hosted by 6 different venues and meet the inspirational people running them.
This week, the group visited Manchester Art Gallery to gain insider knowledge about career paths they might not have heard of, look around the gallery, and create pieces of their own art.
The day began with an art and wellbeing workshop with Emma Carroll, Learning Manager. The group studied and responded to paintings by LS Lowry, guided to take more careful notice of their light, colours and textures.
Deborah Davidson, our lead on Employability, then led a workshop on ‘creative communication’. The young people responded to prompt questions to create a ‘word wall’, exploring how creativity in the classroom makes them feel, what access to creativity means, and what MADE means to them so far.
Following on, they then created their own artwork and explored ways to present words, either alongside images or using artistic expression, to improve their message.
The day ended with the chance to explore the gallery themselves, and a talk with Emma Carroll on paths into careers in curation and education engagement, both conventional and non-conventional.
“I learnt how to examine paintings and art.”
“There is so many jobs you can do in the arts, and you don’t always have to go to university for them.”
“[I gained] Confidence in asking questions... learning to examine artwork.”
Next time, we’ll put this knowledge to use at Contact Theatre!
