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Young People and the Arts
The Youth Panel of the Australia Council, the
Commonwealth Government's principle arts funding and advisory body,
was formed in late 1999an outcome of 'Youth and the Arts' being
one of the priorities of Council's Strategic Plan for 19992001.
Composed of thirteen artists and youth arts workers from around
Australia from diverse artistic and cultural backgrounds, the ambitious
purpose of the Panel is to address the involvement of youth (under
27 years) in the arts in varying capacitiesas artists, participants,
and audiences. Meeting several times per year and between times
by email, the Panel essentially acts as an advisory group to the
Australia Council, and at times, a mediating group between the 'youth'
arts field and the Council.
During 2000, the year I was involved, the Panel
connected to the Council at various levels. We assessed the funding
process-at the majority of Board meetings a Youth Panel member would
attend as an observer. We held public sessions after our meetings,
and initiated a media strategy (including the production of an Avant
Card) in the hope of getting more young people aware of and involved
in the Council. We also initiated the strategies that the current
members are finalising before the Panel disbands at the end of the
year. These include the appointment of younger peers on the funding
boards, the formation of a Youth Arts Group made up of staff members
of the Council, a push for microgrants, the initiation of youth
and the arts public forums, and the identification of new technologies
and education as key areas to pursue, the publication of a 'How
To Where To Guide' for young and emerging artists to get their projects
up, a research study on mentorships, and the possibility of a Youth
Policy within the Council.
Like all institutions, the Australia Council
is a complex, multilayered product of history-parts of which
are more 'youthfriendly' than others. Clearly it will take
more than a panel to effect the kind of changes that some people
would like to see. Nevertheless, in my view, the Panel represents
a positive step in a continual process of updating the Council's
attitudes towards young people's involvement with the arts today,
and a moment of openness in trying to get the more or less nineteenth
century breakdown of artform funds to speak to one another. When
the Youth Panel comes to the end of its tenure, my hope is that
the Australia Council will be a less forbidding organisation for
young artists to apply to or get information from.
I have also been invited here to say a few words
about how the Museum and Gallery world might involve young people
more proactively. I will offer a few thoughts, but I do this
somewhat uncomfortably, as Youth Panel discussion rarely focused
on the specifics of institutions, and I am no expert on cultural
policy. Firstly, it pays to remember that there is no such thing
as 'youth'. Youth is a demographic category whose constituents are
an agglomeration of young people of widely differing classes, genders,
sexualities, ethnicities and so on. If we are to speak about audiences,
as it is assumed we are, the young visitor might be conceived less
in terms of requiring enlightenment than on more uncertain grounds.
We have to accept that young people's singular experiences are as
valid as adults are. Moreover, contrary to conventional wisdom,
an audience does not preexist an event. Recognising that the event
makes the audience happen will allow the exploration of differences
in ways that are liberating to the extent that they assume nothing
in advance.
Secondly, more than just seeing young people
as an audience to be captured, institutions need to affirm the concept
of wider, distributed empowerment of young people in regard to cultural
life: not to dumb down content for young people, but to trust in
the possibility of letting young people themselves create their
own projects, networks and institutions. Institutions may need to
open themselves up to 'parasite' projects. Given that cultural institutions
are by their very nature conservative, an institutional pragmatism
is required. To the best of their abilities, institutions need to
invite young people on their boards, employ young people, embrace
opportunities for young people to work with more experienced people
and offer training in the practicalities of professional practice,
support volunteer programs, keep admission prices as low as possible,
use new technologies and take risks. And it goes without saying
that some institutions are already doing this very well.
- Daniel Palmer is a writer, teacher and
Informations Coordinator at the Centre for Contemporary Photography
and is completing a PhD at Melbourne University on New Media. During
2000, he was the Victorian member of the Australia Council's Youth
Panel. For more information on the Youth Panel and other initiatives
such as the Youth and the Arts Framework, call Terese Casu at the
Australia Council on (02) 9215 9191 or by email at t.casu@ozco.gov.au
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