While many youth workers are keen to collaborate with art galleries, a minority have negative attitudes towards them, seeing them as elitist institutions where staff could be “snooty, patronising and even rude”.
This is one of the findings of An Enquiry into Young People and Art Galleries, a report funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Arts Council.
The report’s authors say that many young people choose to visit galleries independently for inspiration. But others tend to see them as quiet and boring places with “bog standard paintings”. The researchers concluded that young people needed to be consulted at the outset about projects devised for them.
The research was based on programmes and projects undertaken by education and Outreach staff at galleries in London, Walsall, Manchester, Liverpool, Eastbourne and Dublin.
An Enquiry into Young People and Art Galleries, Sara Selwood, Sue Clive and Diana Irving, Art and Society (Pounds 8 plus Pounds 1.50 pp), Department of Arts Policy and Management, City University, Level 12, Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8HB.