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For the majority of young people age group here please in Malta, the institutionalized and increasingly standarised arts have absolutely no place in their lives. Many have a negative view: the arts are seen as remote and institutional. Art galleries, museums and concert halls are 'not for the like of us'  . Therefore if the NMFA wants young people to love the museum, it must offer them some values that are important to them, in activities that meet some of their needs, while also continuing to provide the frequent visitors with what he or she already finds satisfying and rewarding. Young people are known for seeking places to meet other young people, and on an international level, museums have become chic and safe venues to meet high-status individuals Give names of the museums which are attracting such an audience Sociability, dating and networking are large parts of their visits. Many young people want to participate in museums and other cultural organizations where did you get this resource from?. The idea of having activities has spread fast in all the major and small museums worldwide please back this with a reference. These activities were initially held only on Friday evening, however mid-week activities are also taking place reference please. They offer a combination of music, lectures, debates, one-off displays, fashion, films, food and drink and through these they also encourage membership give examples of which museums which undertake these events . Some museums have also organized young people advisory groups to raise funds for the purchase of art and other museum activities please give reference to which museums. Giving young people a stake in a museum's activities is a way to promote participation and creativity, by offering them the opportunity to create exhibitions and programmes for example  . Eventually these young people will become members and donors as museum communities grow older. Please give references during this paragraph as it does sound like it is your opinion and not based on research.
The following are a number of case studies that have worked effectivelyâ€¦ etc,etc,
2.1 National Portrait Gallery, London
Introduce the National portrait Gallery and its success stories or otherwise with a young audience then move on to a specific case study/studies that you think is relevant to your subject - ATTRACTING A YOUNG AUDIENCE . Pleaser also evaluate its relevance and give your opinion on why it worked or otherwise
In 1993 the National Portrait Gallery in London proposed a programme that was intended to encourage a diverse mix of young people, the majority of whom were non-visitors to the museum. On offer there was practical art and photography workshops inspired by the galleries permanent and temporary exhibitions. The format of the photography workshop was to visit the exhibition space, followed by a group discussion before the practical activities kicked off  . The participants were also given a section in the gallery in which their work was displayed mounted as a way of promoting the educational programmes to wider gallery audiences, thus encouraging more participants in the workshops. The overall intention was to present the galleries experience to young people, by creating a programme of activities that would emphasize the educational and challenge participants into better understanding the collection?, . It also had enabled socializing, pleasure and entertainment and also establishing a reputation among teachers, youth workers, parents but more importantly young people themselves  . This had to put? the National Portrait Gallery on the map, as a venue of interest and relevance. How were these workshops structured? What was different from the ones held before and what madecthem attractive to a young audience?
In the paragraph that follows you move on to promotionâ€¦ why? For the scope of the flow of your argument this does not hold. I would suggest you first discuss the event, its strngths and weaknesses and then move on to discuss marketing, etcâ€¦
The gallery had previously run activities for the 13-23 age group. These were recruited through mailing lists built up by interested gallery visitors. As a result, when activities were programmed the available spaces were filled by the sons and daughters of frequent visitors. Obviously there was a high level of parental encouragement, which can occasionally be a mixed blessing, as young people who are increasingly searching for their independence may be more receptive to engaging in an activity which they have chosen out of their free will. The first planned activitie s under the new programme were specifically targeted at groups contacted through youth services. The National Portrait Gallery was willing to collaborate with youth groups and also encourage youth workers to promote the activities to interested individuals  . In the summer months the National Portrait Gallery hosts the BP (British Petroleum) portrait award exhibition, an event designed to highlight contemporary portrait painting and the encourage the work of younger artists. In the first year of the new young people's programmes the activities were extended to include 10 half day painting workshops and a two day photography workshop. The photography workshop was filled up while the painting was poorly attended  - this is the positive outcome of the event - would link it with the paragraph above .
During an informal staff discussion a suggestion was made to include a flyer in the next annual school mailing. The flyer was targeted at art teachers to present to students, inviting names to be put forward for a mailing list through which to advertise future art and photography activities. The result this generated was unexpectedly positive and offered useful insight into how galleries might be marketed to young people. It was the choice of these young people to put their names down and be included in the list. By October the National Portrait Gallery had received over 400 names, with some schools returning a list of 20 names and address while others just two or three  . From now onwards you are discussing a second term of the programmeâ€¦ I would separate the gains/successes of the first session from those of the second which should be increasingly exponential When the gallery came to advertise the new programme of activities in the autumn, the individuals who had expressed interest were contacted directly by mail. This way people were receiving first hand information rather than through teachers or parents. The response was again impressive, with the cartoon and caricature workshop and the three photography workshops oversubscribed in the first two weeks after the launch of the programmes. The most satisfying thing of the self subscribed mailing list was the mixture of people that appeared at the workshops. The common link between everyone was the enthusiasm for art, photography and design, together with the fact that only a few had visited the museum.
The policy of the education department of the National Portairt Gallery is to focus energies on providing a face-to-face service for visitors, rather than mediating education experiences through the production of resource material. One direct benefit of the policy is that education work has a high public profile at the National Portrait Gallery and on any day a visitor is likely to encounter groups and individuals working in front of the pictures, engaged in activities such as drawing, performances or discussion, while more formal lectures, films and video screenings and practical art sessions occur in the studio and lecture rooms. The department also responds to a heavy demand for sessions in support of school syllabuses ranging from A level to the National Curriculum. The heaviest demand comes from history teachers, for which the gallery provides a range of both basic discussion sessions and more specialized activities on Tudor, Stuart and Victorian themes  .
The National Portrait Gallery stresses the importance of the diverse peoples' disabilities. These not only include those who are physically impaired, but also young people who are totally or partially blind or deaf, young people with speech impairment, as well as those with moderate or severe learning difficulties, and those young people who suffer from mental illness  . In developing services for such audiences with disabilities, the National Portrait Gallery designed activities exclusively for groups of disabled visitors, tailoring work to meet their needs and catering for medium-sized groups, with the aim of establishing and building a niche audience such as providing talks and tours and workshops in sign language  . These disabled young people, will only generate a relative small audience, but over time that audience will be established and will want to come back and be pro-actively involved with the gallery in promoting and further improving access  . Please include the age bracket which you are discussing. Does this age bracket coincide with the age bracket which you are research for the NFMA?
An important aspect of the improvements made to the new twentieth century galleries within the National Portrait Gallery was the inclusion of a touch trail for visually impaired people. This involved the selection and placement of 10 sculpted portraits chosen for their varied range of material and of technique and in the best tradition of the gallery, for their range of sitter. This promoted touching however this can only be done while wearing cotton or latex gloves. The trail is supplemented by 12 paintings selected for their scale and graphic boldness and with access aided by Braille labeling, large print guide, thermoform relief representations of the paintings and an audio-tape guide, all of which are available at the information desk  . The gallery also offered sculpture workshops which begin with a tour of the displays which introduce the participants to the gallery's collection and then move on to the exploration of unfamiliar materials and work on new techniques. These events were promoted through disability press and arts listings. However, the gallery also promoted details of events and workshops on local radio. Noelle this is out of pointâ€¦ how does it relate to a young audience? If it is an introduction to the NPG educational programmes for a young audience then it should go at the beginning and as an introduction to the case study
Recognising that museums and galleries have sometimes served to perpetuate exclusivity, the learning department at Tate sees art as a way to examine, challenge and transgress notional boundaries. One way to do this is by getting young people actively involved in gallery culture  .
Oky this is interesting - should you compare and contrast case studies? Why have you chosen Tate and NPG? It is better if you give the reasons why
The Tate Gallery has been working with young people beyond the schools sector since 1988, using methods whereby young people contribute to the programme and the institution, through consultation and peer-leadership. Is this different from NPG and V&A? Originally established at Tate Liverpool in 1994,Young TateÂ is now the umbrella name for the youth programme across all four gallery sites, as well as a dedicated online space  . Although each of the four sites has a distinctive programme of activities and often a particular targeted audience focus, developed through discreet local partnerships, Young Tate has devised a common set of aims. This can it in very well with Heritage Malta's corporate programmeâ€¦ what do you think? These include long-term benefits for young people who are already committed to visual culture, to draw in those who are not and to enhance the lives and career potential of all Young Tate participants through deeper and more varied involvement in Tate and their local galleries. As well as create a space for the exchange of new ideas in which young people are consulted, have opportunities to participate in Tate's cultural process and can take control of their learning and finally to be inclusive and diverse both in programme content and in the young people who participate in these programmes  . These were devised and agreed in 2006, through a series of meetings between the curators from the different sites, drawing together their experiences of building, developing and evaluating peer-led programmes over several years  .
A programme called Tate Extra was established in 2001, with local government  , to create opportunities during out of school hours for young people. One of their key aims was to improve engagement, motivation and achievement through after hours' activity, so there was a very direct link to formal education. The curator worked with teachers drawn from schools in areas local to Tate Britain to recruit young people who were already showing signs of disaffection towards the formal curriculum, but who found art a subject they could relate to  . For Tate Britain the aim was to bring more young people into the galleries, for the gallery to respond to the concerns and interests of young people and for them to gain access to the gallery and the collection, in many cases for the first time. After several years of running these annual programmes, there was a clear need to create a way for these young people to retain and develop their relationship with Tate. It just became more and more apparent that young people were feeling left out in the cold at the end of that project. Tate had been successful enough to develop a relationship with them that was independent from school and they wanted to continue it, and that's when they started to think about a peer-led programme  . This is not clearâ€¦ Tehre is Umbrella Tate (?) then Tate Extra, Tate Forum and Raw Canvasâ€¦ can you introduce the broad picture first and then discuss each programme in sequence ? Is there a sequence? Apparently Raw Canvas was established before Tate Forum â€¦
Therefore Tate Forum was set up in 2002 as a peer-led youth advisory group. At this pointÂ Raw Canvas  , Tate Modern's Young Tate group, was already established, initially recruiting most of its participants and audience through the website. Many of them were art students, already involved in gallery-going and no longer in secondary education. In contrast, Tate Forum was targeting a slightly younger and less confident audience, with an interest in art but not a history of gallery attendance. It was felt that working with schools would reach a more socially and culturally diverse audience  .
Youre back on Tate Forum now - Can you discuss each programme individually and in sequence? Tate Forum has developed over six years and now draws in young people aged 13-25 through a range of different events and projects, many directly targeted, others open to all young people across London  . Other programmed drop-in activities and events are for a broad audience of young Londoners, marketed through the Young Tate website, e-bulletins, MySpace, local radio spots, club flyers, schools and colleges.
The biggest annual event, Loud Tate  , one of three Saturday events sponsored by BP, attracted 2,500 young people in 2007. Many of these young people were visiting the gallery for the first time, drawn in by the promise of a free concert by DJs and Bands. The exciting thing about Loud Tate is the way it involves young people programming events across the gallery, transforming not only the building but how one exists in and experiences that space: troubling for some, liberating for others. Contributions such as loud music are absolutely valid creative activity and Tate Forum clearly feels ownership of both the space and the event. Being a diverse group of young people, inevitably they propose, and argue about, a varied range of events and activities, illustrating the reality of democratic participation in gallery culture.
Over the year Tate Forum plans a number of short, public events, programmed for young audiences, including artists' talks, creative art workshops and online projects. Devising, marketing, running, documenting and evaluating the projects is the responsibility of the young people, in consultation and with support from the Youth Curator and other relevant members of Tate staff  . The present Tate Forum structure consists of bi-weekly, two-hour evening meetings throughout the year when members meet and plan projects and events. There are a number of recruitment events in spring, known as Taster Days, in addition to the longer targeted projects. Attending two or more of these leads to an annual twelve-session training course - in a weekly, two-hour evening slot over the summer - inducting members into the various aspects of the gallery including curating, marketing, conservation, health and safety, visitor services, art-handling and education  . Having completed this, members take an active part in youth-programme development and production. Those over 16 are also invited to become involved in other departmental events such as Late at Tate or Education Open Evenings, for which they are paid.
Many of the original group of recruits joined through their involvement with GCSE Art, and initially the link between Tate Extra and developing GCSE coursework was quite explicit, so the group was largely people interested and actively involved in art  . For these students Tate Forum offered the space to think beyond the confines and conventions of art as a curriculum subject, to develop and discuss ideas with peers and to have a broader understanding of art's forms and functions. One of the members Charlotte Allen please give age here of the Charlotte, who loves art but hated the way it was taught in school states that: I've lost interest in art in the classrooms. I don't see why I have to be in a classroom to draw or do anything. Why do I have to be regimented? Why do I have to do what my teacher says when surely art is an opinionated subject? â€¦ I see coming here as what I think art should be. It shouldn't be in the classroom - it should be in galleries, it should be outside â€¦ That's what I think is the problem with art in schools. What is your thought on this quote? Do you feel that many students of her age agree with this? From where did you get this?
The link between Tate Forum and academic or career opportunities is a complex, and not directly causal, one. But several members cited specific examples where an insight into the institution, the confidence built through being part of the group, or the connections and conversations with professionals had been significant  . For instance, through the youth programme's connection with University of the Arts London, Widening Participation initiative and the National Arts Learning Network (NALN), one or two Tate Forum members met and had informal discussions with tutors from colleges where they went on to make an application and ultimately gain a place. The relationship works both ways: NALN sees Tate Forum as a model of good practice and has employed members as student ambassadors at events such as Portfolio Advice Day  . Creating access for young people who do not have a tradition of museum and gallery-going beyond school trips could be characterised as worthy, and can be classified as part of the tradition of a 'civilising ritual'  , that is, museums act as public spaces where moral and social improvement can be obtained.Â
2.3 The National Gallery
Take One Picture  is the National Gallery's countrywide scheme for primary schools. Each year the Gallery focuses on one painting from the collection to inspire cross-curricular work in primary classrooms. For 2008/2009 the focus painting was on Renior's Umbrellas and this saw more then two hundred schools submit their work  . This year's focus painting is Tobias and the Angel by Andrea del Verrochio's workshop. Take One Picture encourages students of all abilities because of the flexible and open framework  . Children who are involved in class, whole school and national projects improve confidence in their own work and enhances a sense of ownership for their national collection of paintings.
During a one-day continuing professional development course at the Gallery, teachers are given a print of the painting. The challenge is then for schools to use the image imaginatively in the classroom, both as a stimulus for artwork but also for work in more unexpected curriculum area. The National Gallery education department then displays a selection of the work on the annual Take One Picture exhibition in the National Gallery. Over the years, the chosen pictures have been used by teachers in different ways. For example, a year 6 teacher whose class was studying 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' thought how this could be linked to Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne through thinking about magical and mythological creatures. These connections were used to produce a videoÂ in which pupils from the school encounter mystery and magic in the woods surrounding their school  . Another teacher used Uccello's painting in maths and created a Saint George and the Dragon snakes and ladders game. Another school planned to suspend the timetable for three days to concentrate on artwork across the curriculum inspired by Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne  .Â There is something unclear hereâ€¦ why are you discussing children when the scope is to attract a young audience?? Please specify age bracket
Take One Picture activities have a wide range, and have included poetry, drama, dance, sculpture, and even science experiments and ICT  . The process of making work collaboratively or individually can be very engaging for students. Teachers often remark on how disaffected students have been motivated and stimulated by creative work.Â After creating the picture, the next stage is to share the work with a wider audience. Sharing gives students and teachers a chance to reflect on and to evaluate their work. This could include anything from showing work to another class in the school, a school exhibition, a parents' evening or even a website. One class performed their version of Saint George and the Dragon at a whole school assembly  . All Saints School in Hampshire published the students' work on the school website. A goupr of four schools from Swansea held a collaborative exhibition based on Canaletto's The Stonemason's Yard for the whole community  . Going to the National Gallery to see their work, was a tremendous experience for many of them, as they viewed their own work next to that of Leonardo  . Same hereâ€¦.
The Courtauld Gallery
Art history short courses and events are offered at The Courtauld Gallery through its Public Programme  for anyone with an interest in art weather they are young people, schools, teachers, scholars or the general public. The aim of these short courses, talks and events is to make The Courtauld Institute of Art's scholarly expertise and the wealth of the Courtauld Gallery's collection accessible to the wider public. Courses and events are led by art historians and by experiences artists.
In 2009 The Courtauld Gallery in collaboration with the University of Arts, London organized a summer school and evening courses namely Animating Art History. Twenty-eight young people from eleven schools and colleges across London aged 16 to 19 took part in the innovative course which combined art history and animation  . The participants explored art history research methods at the Courtauld and moving images processes at the Graphic Design Department in Saint Martin's College of Art and Design  . The course kicked off by visiting the Gallery and the Universities, these were followed by art history lectures, research and the chance to study the original works of art in the collection, as well as learning the animation techniques at Saint Martin's. The task was to work in pairs or groups of three's to choose a work of art from the Courtauld collection and devise a short animation film that interprets an aspect of its history. The animation was designed for the new Animating Art History section  for the Courtauld website and is aimed at inspiring children and teachers to explore art and art history and visit the Gallery. The Courtauld curators helped them find out more about the painting and they also carried out research in the library and online.
The development theme for the animation had to focus on the technique used, the history or the artist's idea. The spoken text had to be simple, accurate and focused. The clear academic message was to have enough substance to inspire the audience to find out more about art and history of art. A short text panel had to be written to describe why the work of art was chosen. It also had to include facts about the artists, the material used, the dates of the work and historical information about society and culture of the time  . Participants made stop-frame animation using only twelve digital stills inspired by something in the Courtauld Gallery. They took photos on the courtyard of Someret House and used specialist software at Saint Martin's to animate them. They also photographed the architecture of the Gallery  . All this research was conducted in groups together they tried out lots of different techniques using different cameras, pixilations and computers. At the end of the course they had to present their work in a screening event attended also by the Heads of both Universities  .
The Sir John Soane Museum
The Sir John Soane Musuem has recently launched half- or full-day children's workshops in the school holidays which include October half term, Christmas holidays, February half term, Easter Holidays, June half term and the summer holidays. The aim behind these workshops is to either develop a skill or explore Soane's treasures with specialist guidance. The workshops are suitable for children aged 7+ and the cost is £18 for a whole day or £10 for half day  . The price includes all the materials, however lunch is not included and children must get their own.
The activities are vast and are at times also related to holidays such as Christmas. Christmas, All Wrapped Up, is one of the workshops were children will be asked to make their own printed Christmas wrapping paper by creating stencils inspired by patters in the Museum  . The Easter activity namely Extraordinary Eggs, allows the children to explore the Museums to find a pattern and paint an egg with a Soane inspired design  . For the October half term the activities are based around Halloween, Shadowy Secrets at the Soane, where those taking part make their own moving shadow puppets to tell ghost stories by lamplight in the Museum. On the other hand there are activities that are based on the museum such as Momentous Monuments, here the children are inspired by Britannia, John Soane's model of a colossal monument that could have been one of Britain's greatest ever structures, however it was never built! The idea of this workshop is to design and build your own great monuments.Â Another activity involves hunting for weird and wonderful heads made of stone, clay or plaster know as Heads Galore! And the children must then design and make their own special head from clay  .
2.6 The Victoria and Albert Museum
Design for Life is a partnership project which focuses on engaging young people in creative design through the use of museums. The project is led by the V&A with Action for Children  and five regional galleries and museums such as the Brighton, Birmingham and Manchester City Museums and Art Galleries. Design for Life is an action research project which aims to identify ways in which museums could support young people in developing their talents and contribute to the creative economy, both as producers and informed consumers. In the initial pilot phase which was in 2008-09, it was known as Design Your Life and worked with over 300 young people aged 11-18 from schools and community groups to research and test a varied range of design based learning programmes inspired by museum collections.
TheÂ project has just now completed its second year and this year's theme was Recycled, encompassing both the environment-friendly use of materials and also the 'recycling' of practical and visual ideas gained from museum objects  . Through the creative design process each person re-imagined and personalized these ideas to create a unique and distinctive product. This year the V&A worked with two groups of young people- 14 girls from year 10 GCSE Product Design course at Eltham Hill Collage of Technology and a group of eight young people aged 9-14 from the Action for Children Haringey Young Carers project. At Eltham Hill, the brief was to make T-shirts dresses and create a fabric design inspired by the Museum. The girls created necklaces to complement the dress  . At the Museum they were inspired by fashion designs by Mary Quant and pop art imagery. Two professional designers- in fashion and jewellery visited the school to demonstrate their working processes, help students with their work and give feedback at the end of the project. The girls developed their ideas and created fabric designs with a combination of techniques including cut stencil with spray fabric paints and iron-on transfer printing of digital images, the jewellery pieces were either cast in pewter from clay moulds or cut from MDF (Medium-density fiberboard)  . The final works were exhibited at a fashion showcase event at the V&A.
The Haringey Young Carers attended three 'meet a designer and make' days and a fourth showcase event  . The first day was product design with the V&A's then designer-in-resident Lao Jianhua where the young people made lampshades inspired by the Chinese and Japanese galleries. The second session was jewellery making: shapes cut in thin cooper foil inspired by motifs in the South Asian galleries. The third was T-shirt painting inspired by shapes and colours from the glass gallery  . The final showcase event was well attended by parents and the three designers presented the young people with certificates of achievement.
From 26 April-8 June 2010 the V&A hosted the national exhibition of young people's work with an accompanying young people's conference. Over the comingÂ year the project plans to develop a replicable design learning 'package' to enthuse young people about creative design and its potential in their lives.Â Online resources will be created and training/dissemination events will promote wider participation by museums nationwide  .
Friday Late is held on the lastÂ Friday in every month (except December) when the Museum is open from 10.00 to 22.00 with events starting at 18.30  . In the June edition of Friday Late visitors had the opportunity to explore seven V&A commissioned structures located around the Museum. The spaces had been created especially for the exhibition 1:1 - Architects Build Small Spaces  Â by international architects at the forefront of experimental design. Highlights included a reading tower by Norwegian architects Rintala Eggertsson with shelves holding over 6000 books and cocoon 'reading' booths, Terunobu Fujimori's wooden retreat elevated on stilt-like legs in the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, plus Studio Mumbai's series of narrow corridors and miniature spaces inspired by parasitic architecture in theÂ Cast Courts.
The evening's focus was on intimate spaces, architecture as an experience and an exploration of the ways in which people could interact with architecture, both physically and emotionally. Special performances took place around the exhibition installations, as well as events and temporary interventions in the most unusual of the V&A's spaces. Visitors enjoyed exhibition architects Vazio S/A and Triptych Architects in conversation, took an artful voyage into modernist architecture with screenings of Graham Ellard & Stephen Johnstone's 16mm film Machine on Black Ground and experienced a 'musical manifesto' lecture from Helsinki-based architect, thinker and musician, Tuomas Toivonen  . A diminutive personal disco created by Post-Office, theatre from The Factory, craft construction workshops and a 'woodshedding' jazz session were also on offer. There was also the opportunity to meet V&A artists-in-residence Aberrant Architecture, and visit the unique display of their models and digital projections, to explore the Museum's quirky architectural details and secret spaces with a V&A archivist, as well as one-off male access to the Museum's recently renovated ladies lavatories designed by architects Glowacka Rennie with artist Felice Varini  .
In addition, there was out-of-hours access to the Museum'sÂ Grace Kelly: Style IconÂ andÂ QuiltsÂ exhibition. Having had the opportunity to attend this edition of Friday Late, I can say that the crowd was completely different from the daily one. There were a lot of people below the thirty age bracket, most of whom, after going round the exhibits congregated at the entrance area of the V&A where a live DJ and food and drinks as well as cocktails were served all evening. Some were standing or sitting as they socialised with their friends over a glass of wine.
The V&A also offers a number of activities based on diverse cultural backgrounds. These include a Black Heritage Programme  and a week dedicated to Refugees  . The Black Heritage Programme offers an exciting range of special events. These events include live jazz to celebrate the work of the legendary musician Louis Armstrong, touring the galleries and exhibitions, learning more about social activist Paul Robeson and his battles with the FBI, or spend an evening exploring Rastafarian recital of prayers, poems and listening to some vintage Jamdown sounds. There was also an evening of song and dance for families of all ages named Caribbean Liming Families Night. Here one could discover old and new dances, join in a parade featuring island sounds and learn to sing folk songs. One could also listen to stories and tales, create magical masks and dress up as a carnival character with a painted face and decorate an island backdrop with shells from the Caribbean seashore  .
Refugee Week is a free event dedicated to refugee-made work and how it has contributed to the V&A collections. The week long events consist of talks, tours, workshops and live performances. One of the activities during this year's Refugee week was Making Memories where one could make an artwork using personal photographs, story telling and memories with the help of textile artist Natasha Kerr.Â The participants had to bring personal family photographs and share the stories and memories attached to the images.Â
An exhibition about the development of quilts (Quilts: 1700-2010) ran concurrently with Refugee week and served the participants with a further source of inspiration. The participants then spent the afternoon working onÂ a creation of their own, and left with the skills and inspiration to continue makingÂ wonderful textiles at home  . My V&A is a tour that sees the V&A's collections from a different perspective. It allows a refugee be the guide, taking those interested on a unique tour of the Museum as objects in the galleries act as a springboard for their own highly personal stories  .
The V&A's Access, Social Inclusion and Community Development Team works hard to represent the interests of cultural diversity and equality across the museum. Their aim has been to make the Sackler Centre  feel welcoming, attractive, relevant and engaging to the widest possible range of people.Â The new spaces has enable them to run exciting projects, encouraging visitors from diverse backgrounds to explore and engage with the collections in differentÂ ways and also to reach out further to wider audiences beyond the walls using the technology that the new Centre will provide  . An innovative residency scheme has seen two studios in the Centre being used by artists, designers and craftspeople interacting with the public.
The Access, Social Inclusion and Community Development Team have recently organised a series of jewellery workshops with young men who come from asylum and refugee communities. The young men in these workshops originate from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia and had never made jewellery before  .Â TheyÂ were very keen to get involved with this highly technical and creative art form, using the Indian collections in the Nehru Gallery as an inspiration.Â The group worked with a professional jeweller who interacted well with the young men and pitchedÂ workshops at the right level in order to fully engage with the participants  .Â It is expected that these young people will continue to work with the V&A across its many exciting and diverse programmes in the new Centre.