GrowinG Future innovators - ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative ...

54
“Freehand” members.
Photograph courtesy of
the Foundation for Art and
Creative technology (FACT),
Liverpool, UK.
177 Tate (2010a)
178 Tate (2010b)
179 www.twentyforharperroad.
blogspot.com
That was quite successful. And it led to six
sessions and then a showcase event at the
end where they had this celebration. They
take it that far, some of them.
An older peer-led initiative of this ilk was
set up through the Young Tate scheme. All
four Tate galleries recruit young people aged
between 13 and 25 years old who are then
inducted via a peer-leadership training course.
Over the years, projects by these groups
have ranged from making fanzines, comics,
and transnational exhibitions to creating films
inspired, made and screened within the gallery:
One night, one hundred people came to
Tate Britain to make horror films. With
permission to switch off the lights they
invented stories about gallery attendants
trapped in time and zombies climbing out
of paintings. 177
And at the Tate Modern one year,
Growing future Innovators: a scoping study
They wanted to create a different kind of
audio tour as a backdrop for looking at 16
selected art works. The tour produced offers
a combination of interviews, sound and
music as an alternative way of looking to
provoke the viewer to investigate other ways
to read that artwork. 178
The Tate Modern’s peer-led program is called
Raw Canvas and its website states, “Everyone is
involved in the decision making process at Raw
Canvas. You name it—project management,
workshops, meetings, team work, training,
design, marketing, branding.” Anna Culter also
explains, “They do something called the Tate
Takeover, where they take over a space or
part of Tate Modern and they often take over
the [Millennium] bridge and run a series of
events on it. It’s always unbelievably popular
and busy and they are definitely generating
a different feel.” The collective have recently
staged a month long event called Twenty For
Harper Road, 179 with free events, activities
and workshops “for people to assemble and
talk, think and make creatively,” with varied
programming that included instrumentbuilding,
moustache-making, Art Walks, and
an Aroma-Diner.
Anna Cutler says that peer-led programs
can be very time-consuming to administer
and expresses concerns they are somewhat
limited by how many young people they
actually can support as well as the level of
responsibility participants are sometimes
expected to carry. One of the strengths,
however, is in the management experience
and motivational skills these schemes
cultivate. A testimonial from one of the
members of Raw Canvas states, “the tasks we
set ourselves are almost always a challenge
but the sense of achievement when they
are finished is unbeatable.” For these groups
to be successful, however, the leadership
opportunities should not be token or
inauthentic. Sally Tallant from Serpentine
Gallery in central London cautions against
making a false offer, and says, “I wouldn’t go
down that road unless you’re really ready to
go full on into what they say.”