envision

The context

The organisation

Nottingham’s en-vision project builds on the N’Clusions Project (1998-2001) at the Castle Museum and Art Gallery – which aimed to engage young people in arts activities across Nottingham City – and ongoing work by Angel Row Gallery with Apt. 

This work has been project based rather than being fully embedded into the wider programme and has not incorporated other sites within the Museums Service. This project aimed to address the imbalance and to see if experience and knowledge of young people gained at Angel Row Gallery could be translated to other sites. 

Nottingham’s en-vision is two projects – one based at Angel Row Gallery and one at Nottingham Castle. We took this opportunity to experiment with different ways of working and each project developed very differently. 

Angel Row Gallery is the East Midlands' flagship venue for leading edge contemporary art and craft. It has a national reputation for its exhibitions programme and for its work in audience development and interpretation.

Website: Angel Row Gallery

The project

Delivery

time-scale: The planning for the project took place over several months, but the contact time with the young people, once the group had been gathered, was just two weeks in summer. 

summary of activities and outputs: 

Explore with young people, the barriers that prevent them engaging with museums, galleries and contemporary art: 

• Young people (YP) visited Angel Row Gallery, Ikon in Birmingham, Saatchi Gallery in London and the studio of artist, Sutapa Biswas 

• YP met key personnel for talks at those venues (with the exception of the Saatchi) and gained an understanding of the remits of galleries and the roles of the staff 

• YP discussed contemporary art and galleries and gave their preference / dislikes and opinions about what would encourage them to visit 

• YP’s expectations were challenged 

• YP identified the aspects they felt were key to engaging YP and designed a DVD guide and booklet to promote these 

• Positive feedback from the YP through informal discussion and questionaires which measured their knowledge and attitudes before and after the project 

Develop good practice in including young people in aspects of museums and galleries policy and programming in a sustainable way: 

• The young participants were involved in all the decision making on the project. 

• YP made aware that their views were important to us 

• YP were encouraged to question decisions made by venues 

• YP were supported to fully participate in discussions 

• Two of the YP were employed as explainers when a Lucy Orta installation was displayed in Market Square, Nottingham 

• One of the YP took up a volunteer placement opportunity at Angel Row and has since been employed in an educational capacity on a Pre-Raphaelite project at Nottingham Castle 

• YP from this and the Nottingham Castle Wordz Out project ran a joint mini-workshop /presentation at the en-vision training seminar, Leicester 

Create good working relationships between the partner organisations: 

• New partnerships were established with freelance staff, arts professionals in other galleries and young people 

• The role of project partners was diminished when the age range was raised 

• Despite a limited involvement by Apt in this project (for reasons explained), the Museums Service has a greater understanding of how the organisation works, and has since collaborated 

successfully on a couple of projects 

Embedding a youth friendly culture: 

• Participants feel that there is the potential for their voice to be recognised 

• All participants will be targeted in any mailing regarding the development of a youth panel (combined with the participants on the Wordz Out project) 

• The experience and knowledge staff have gained will go forward in the planning and promotion of future activities across NCMG as well as through the dissemination of the DVD 

• Staff have increased their knowledge of other initiatives and approaches taken by other galleries in relation to access, marketing and programming 

• Staff now have a thorough understanding of the policy-based considerations of working with young people which can be integrated into future projects – from duty of care and insurance, through to issues of consent 

• The gallery now has a pool of interested young people who have already taken up opportunities for volunteer placements and employment for the gallery 

• Staff now have a clearer understanding and realistic expectations of relevant partners and organisations, both within and beyond the city 

• The DVD is a professional product containing evidence with which to advocate for the needs of young people to future stakeholders 

• Training for front of house staff across the museums service, as previously described 

Outcomes

Impact on participants

outcomes for young people: 

• New practical and technical skills 

• Communication and discussion skills 

• Analysing and interpreting the ‘messages’ sent out by staff and venues 

Increased awareness of; 

• The resources available at Angel Row Gallery 

• Contemporary art, cultural venues in three different cities, how they work 

• Own ideas around art through the inspiration of working with other artists 

• How to empathise with the needs of a wide range of visitors, not just young people 

Feedback from the young people was very positive; 

• Individuals commented on the positives of meeting new people, making friendships and working as a group 

• All the YP who attended the launch commented on how pleased and proud they were to share with friends, family, and people at the preview 

• Attended for a mixture of reasons but all really enjoyed the visits to cities and galleries, and meeting staff in different galleries 

• Individuals have subsequently extended their contact with the gallery through use of gallery office resources for study, help and advice from gallery staff, volunteer placement, two employed on a project 

Impact on others involved

outcomes for partner organisation’s: 

• The role of partners became slightly confused at times and essentially the projects were led by 

NCMG. Apt and the youth service were not included in planning the details of the 2 pilots and as plans were formulated their roles became diminished and unclear (e.g. reducing age group of the participants, and targeting groups other than those which the youth service suggested in the early stages of the project) 

• All partners feel that this could have been clarified by shared planning earlier in the process, with partners suggesting there needed to be a working agreement identifying specific contributions from each organisation, and more frank discussions about the partnership and about recruiting and supporting more challenging groups 

• Staff changes at Apt part way through the project also impacted on their ability to support the project in an advisory capacity 

Institutional change

outcomes for the gallery: 

• Non-education / access staff do not necessarily come into contact with project participants in their day to day work, so this was a chance for them to be more aware of the needs of young people and the logistics and the benefits of working closely with new audiences 

 

Lessons learned

What worked and what didn’t

success factors / recommendations: 

• Shared control or negotiated control- design your project to allow the young people to take over responsibility of specific areas of the project 

• Information – Make sure that you have consent for all images and project footage. Allow the young people the opportunity to write or help you write project descriptions, information about 

participants and any publicity information. Make sure that the young people are included in any 

press images if appropriate 

• Communication – young people communicate mostly by text messaging and mobile phones. 

Agree with the young people how you will contact them throughout the project and how they will contact you. Young people generally do not think in the 9-5 time-scale 

• Be aware of the different dynamics an established versus a new group can have on project activity and time 

• If individuals are recruited to form a new group be aware that you may need to take on the role 

of group leader, which may bring a complex set of roles – mediator, negotiator, co ordinator etc. 

all of which need to be budgeted in as time 

• Allow time for a group to form, gain trust and function as a collective 

• Location, Location, Location! Perhaps on their terms – in their environment. Be innovative with 

the idea of utilising new non-arts spaces 

• Programme your project to include leisure time (e.g., trip / visit, sports, music event) 

• artists who are respected within the community you are targeting 

• Use professionals, the aspiration, value, impact and credibility is higher 

 

challenges: 

• Despite a long time in planning (from original en-vision funding bid), there was little actual project delivery time. However, this was turned into an advantage, with an intense two week period of activity which sustained the young people’s interest 

• The projects succeeded at the expense of the partnerships. As the partners’ involvement became less relevant to the projects, it became easier for the museum & gallery service to continue alone in order to complete the project – but the potential value of working in a shared partnership was lost 

• The Museums Service (with Apt) has developed a Partnership Policy, to improve the way in which it works with partners in future 

 

Next steps

what next? 

• Distribution of Way In Way Out Booklet / DVD locally and nationally 

• More in-depth guidelines that didn’t make it into the DVD are to be extracted from the project documentation and used for strategic planning 

The en-vision project has given Nottingham Museums and Galleries the opportunity to embark on exciting projects with young people and to prove that it has the capacity and ability to do so 

• We wish to establish a consultative group of young people who can support us in museum and gallery developments (such as CCAN, the Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham) from their perspective. We intend to draw upon the skills of the young people involved in these pilot projects in the first instance 

• Although the partnerships did not turn out to be as fruitful as anticipated for all parties, we are aware of the issues to be rectified. As a result of these projects, we understand better the ways in which our partners work and how we can better engage and involve them in future 

• We will continue our volunteer placement programme across the museums service and encourage applications from young people (over 18’s), particularly those not already attending a museum / heritage related course