THE LIVING CITY: INCLUSIVE, SUSTAINABLE, CREATIVE
01.23.2010 | 03.07.2010
In partnership with the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC) and five art institutions across the country, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery is participating in an innovative new project, Youth Curators of the Future. Addressing the theme, The Living City: Inclusive, Sustainable, Creative, groups of high school students in each city select works from their local museum or gallery collection, and create curatorial responses in a variety of mediums including text, video, paint, and photography. Responses will be posted on the Experimental Lab of the VMC website (www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca) for five years and will be featured in the Canadian Pavilion at the World Exposition in Shanghai in May 2010. The VMC website will provide a platform for open dialog, encouraging students to discuss their peers’ selections and create virtual exhibitions from all the posted works. Youth Curators of the Future will connect students from across the country, expose them to the field of museology and give them the opportunity to experiment with social media in a museum/gallery context.
In Lethbridge, SAAG is working with twenty students at Catholic Central High School who selected and responded to artworks from the City of Lethbridge Art Collection and the Donald Buchanan Art Collection. Unique to the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, they also had the opportunity to respond to work by contemporary artists Tricia Middleton (Midnight Gallery Rambles) and Mary-Anne McTrowe (Decorate and Protect), whose exhibitions were recently on view at SAAG. Upon selecting an artwork relating to the theme The Living City, students then conducted research, prepared curatorial records and created some form of aesthetic response. With freedom to explore a variety of art-making techniques, students experimented with graffiti, voyeuristic photography, three-dimensional collage and more, all of which will culminate in the exhibition The Living City: Inclusive, Sustainable, Creative.
As another dimension of Youth Curators of the Future, students were given the opportunity to meet with gallery staff and exhibiting artists. They went on tours of the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, including a behind-the-scenes peek at exhibitions during the installation process. In addition, SAAG pulled works from collection storage offering students an up-close and personal experience with the objects they chose to research. These ambitious artists have created thought-provoking works addressing The Living City, which will be on view in the Southern Alberta Art Gallery’s storefront gallery until March 7, 2010.
Participants in the Youth Curators of the Future project include:
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Kamloops Art Gallery, Musée d’art de Joliette, Museum London and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Funding assistance from Canadian Heritage.
