52 The “Elastic Frontiers” project, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK. Images by artist Dan Shipsides. Growing future Innovators: a scoping study
175 Shipsides (2006) 176 http://fact.tv/ an almost vertical ‘slab’ wall made <strong>of</strong> school tables, with holes cut to act as hand and foot holes…. Working, really <strong>for</strong> the first time, within a school environment, I was aware <strong>of</strong> discussions about success and achievement and how these are measured… Asking the ubiquitous questions <strong>of</strong> “how has the project affected you?” or “what is the impact <strong>of</strong> the project?” ‘Height with magazines’ uses a stack <strong>of</strong> (vintage) mountaineering magazines to suggest an absurd way <strong>of</strong> measuring or assessing an expansion or ‘growth’ in stature, knowledge and experience. This work accumulated names and height through the exhibition period. Images from my collection <strong>of</strong> vintage magazines appear in the photographic series <strong>of</strong> Untitled landscapes. The magazines acted as a resource throughout the project and the group became quite attached to them—<strong>of</strong>ten having favourite images and making drawings from images. The magazines were selected by each young person and they were asked to consider their pose, how they held the magazine and their expression <strong>for</strong> the photograph. Some fun responses came about through their inventiveness and response to the images. 175 Leadership and energy: Increasingly common to contemporary arts institutions are ‘peer-led’ programs—social clubs functioning as project groups that are run by young adults <strong>for</strong> young adults but with support from the institution to realize ideas. Summing up the concept and approach, Anna Kronenburg <strong>of</strong> FACT explains, “the young people decide what it is they want to learn and how they want to do it and we facilitate that <strong>for</strong> them.” Even though peer-led programs are usually extra-curricula, participants are still regularly recruited through contact with school programs. Members range from young people who are simply curious about creative media through to those more focused on developing an arts portfolio and career. The groups engage onsite and online, utilizing project websites or social networking media such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. FACT’s peer-led program began in 2007 and emerged out <strong>of</strong> a project involving a group <strong>of</strong> local skateboarders who had been interested in making films about skate boarding. While undertaking this creative endeavour, they came up with the name Freehand. They began developing its brand and also worked with a design company to establish its web site. 176 The initiative now includes Freehand TV, an arts-based channel, like you-tube, that acts as a plat<strong>for</strong>m <strong>for</strong> youth-led events, ideas and innovation. Anna Vroneburg explains the early impact <strong>of</strong> the program: They’ve done a number <strong>of</strong> projects together [but] they’ve only started to peer lead. So they didn’t peer lead straight away. They were gaining new skills. Then once the older young people involved started to gain those skills became aware <strong>of</strong> where they should go next, they were quite keen then on recruiting new young people and actually showing them how to make a documentary film, <strong>for</strong> example, through the things that they’ve learned here. The program is aimed at 13 to 19 year olds who have an interest in film and new media, technology. Some things they get involved with are just watching films and talking about them afterwards. And then there are sort <strong>of</strong> sub groups, depending on their interests. There’s an online group that meet and they specifically want to work on the web site and Flash animation. Then there’s another group who tend to fundraise and make their own films, documentaries, and fiction films. They pick and choose the areas that they’re interested in. I worked on a project last year with a group <strong>of</strong> young people and they basically took control <strong>of</strong> it from start to finish… They knew that they wanted to work with an artist to create a project to work with other young people from different areas in response to a FACT exhibition. So they wrote the application themselves, they put it in, and were successful in getting funding. We brainstormed together, but they led it. Then they put a call out <strong>for</strong> artists. They read through the applications to shortlist themselves, then interviewed six artists when they came to pitch. They selected an artist and then worked with a quite hard to reach group from Liverpool to deliver it. Growing future Innovators: a scoping study 53
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