On February 11th Dunclug Youth Forum travelled to The Model in Sligo to attend the launch of an exhibition they have co- curated with youth in Sligo, entitled Double Vision.
This launch attracted a handsome turnout which was predominantly made up of young people who relished the visual displays and diverse sounds of Double Vision.
Dunclug Youth Forum is delighted to announce their exciting exhibition will also be coming to The Mid-Antrim Museum at The Braid in September 2012.
Supported by International Fund for Ireland, this Young Curators project is an innovative and unique cross- border partnership which has been taking place at The Model and at The Mid-Antrim Museum at The Braid over the last two years. This adventurous project challenged the young people to draw on artifacts and artworks from two significant but very different public collections; The Niland Collection, one of Ireland’s most important holdings of twentieth century art, and the social history collection of The Mid-Antrim Museum at The Braid, to creatively experiment and curate their own exhibition. Double Vision is the exciting product of this partnership.
The young people decided, not only what works to include in the exhibition, but also the way the pieces are displayed, the design of the exhibition, the audio, video trailer and everything else that is needed to bring an exhibition of this magnitude together.
The choice of objects and the design of the exhibition enabled the groups to present new thoughts about these objects and their relationship to the world. The exhibition has created a host of new connections, which range from the purely visual, to ideas about history, culture, identity and society.
Over the two years the groups have worked with staff at The Mid-Antrim Museum and The Model to become familiar with both collections. At the end of this full process, the Young Curators have experienced working with collections and understanding the role of a curator. They have developed their critical thinking and visual literacy, and have learned about each other’s political geographies and discovered shared histories.
So what does a Curator do?
We asked artist and Young Model facilitator Andy Parsons to explain:
"A curator for art is a bit like a DJ is for music. A DJ selects tunes to create a set, which is an event for a group of people to participate in. Some people will like some of the tunes better than others, there might be some floor fillers and some floor emptiers. There might be old mixed with new. There might be classics alongside cheesy tunes. If the DJ does a good job, he or she has created something new from something that already existed.”
Further details regarding Double Vision can be obtained by emailing maria.cagney@ballymena.gov.uk/. Alternatively, information will be made available on The Braid website nearer the Double Vision launch date in September 2012.