Published: 13 Nov 2018
An exhibition celebrating the talent and creativity of young people from across Scotland will take place at Maryhill Burgh Halls in Glasgow later this month, as part of Scotland’s Year of Young People 2018.
The free exhibition will be opened on Saturday 24 November by award-winning Scottish artist, Jacqueline Donachie, and it will be open to the public on both Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 November from 1 – 4pm.
Celebrate ART is a project developed by young people and five partner organisations - Engage Scotland (the National Association for Gallery Education), The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, The John Byrne Award, Templar Arts & Leisure Centre in Tarbert, Argyll, and Tramway in Glasgow.
Through Celebrate ART groups of young people have worked with artists at partner venues to co-produce a series of artworks. The exhibition will be the first time that the young people from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Tarbert and beyond have exhibited their artwork together.
Congratulations to all the young people involved on their tremendous achievements - we hope that they enjoy presenting their work to the public, an exciting moment in every artist’s career.- Amanda Catto, Head of Visual Arts
Artwork produced by young people from all three gallery partners involved will be on show, including a performance developed by the young people working with the Fruitmarket Gallery.
The Fruitmarket Gallery’s group of young people will show a range of artwork exploring art and identity and an interactive performance developed in partnership with Creative Electric.
The Fruitmarket’s project Celebrate ART, Art and Identity included weekly studio-based sessions delivered from April to June in collaboration with Access to Industry. This project used creative arts to support the mental health and wellbeing of young people, providing a safe and confidential space in which participants could express their thoughts and feelings using a variety of media.
Seven young people worked alongside artist Louise Fraser, youth trainee Natasha Ruwona and Access to Industry case workers Graham Redpath and Karen Lally. The project enabled the participants to develop a range of new creative skills, experiment with different materials and explore their own identities, whilst receiving guidance and support from Access to Industry to find routes into employment, education and training.
The Fruitmarket will also present an interactive performance co-produced with young people working with Louise Fraser, Natasha Ruwona and Creative Electric director, Heather Marshall.The young people have devised and created a bespoke interactive multi-art form performance especially for the Celebrate ART exhibition and showcase. Creative Electric is a critically acclaimed theatre company who create contemporary performance based on real experiences.
Celebrate ART is part of the Fruitmarket’s Connecting Communities programme, which is generously supported by the William Grant Foundation and Baillie Gifford.
The young people from Argyll worked with themes related to the sea. They developed utopian architectural ideas on how it might be possible to live in the sea and took inspiration from the beauty of the sea, waves and drifts to create patterns to be used as a print on fabric, or laser cut as a sculptural element. Their work will be on display at Maryhill Burgh Halls before being exhibited at the Rockfield Centre in Oban on 8/9 December.
All the young people’s artworks use a mix of digital and analogue art techniques and they are partly responsive – they react to the visitor’s presence. Visually they relate to contemporary and parametric design, and the sound elements feed back to the visitor’s touch.
One of the projects they will show is a collaboration between a young artist and a young scientist, to create an audio-visual piece about sound pollution in the sea.
The young artists will be at the exhibition to talk visitors through the artwork they have created.
Since March, Tramway have been working with a group of emerging young artists aged 15 to 23 exploring their place in the world through a story they have created of addiction, dependency, loss, personal change and growth.
The group have been developing skills in contemporary visual art and event production, including three paid internships from video documentation through to curation.
In July the young artists presented a live visual art performance in Tramway’s main theatre, and they will be showing the reinterpreted sculptures and artwork created for this performance at the exhibition at Maryhill Burgh Halls.
The John Byrne Award have worked alongside the young people at each of the partner venues to document the projects as they develop.
Amanda Catto, Head of Visual Arts at Creative Scotland, commented: “We are looking forward to this exhibition of work made by young people as part of the Celebrate ART project, supported by Creative Scotland. We’d like to congratulate all the young people involved on their tremendous achievements and we hope that they enjoy presenting their work to the public, an exciting moment in every artist’s career. Creativity is fundamental to our lives and the Year of Young People reminds us how important it is that all of Scotland’s young people can access a range of opportunities across the arts, screen and creative industries. This partnership is exemplary in that regard.”
Paul Bush OBE, VisitScotland’s Director of Events, said: “The Celebrate ART project presents a fantastic opportunity for young people to explore their creative skills and to express themselves through visual arts. It is great to see young aspiring artists being actively supported and encouraged to hone their skills. We are delighted to be supporting Celebrate ART as part of the Year of Young People 2018 celebrations.”
Alex, one of the young artists from Glasgow said: “I think school always pushes young people towards more academic subjects, which is a shame because it ends up dampening a lot of young people’s creative spirit and their own form of expression.”
“It has been one of the many amazing opportunities to young people that allows them to be creative and to express themselves through art and all different forms of art. The arts in general can be something that people shy away from, as there is a sense of not enough support or funding but YoYP has ensured that many different companies are getting involved and helping with that.”
Hear more from Alex in this video from Engage:
For more information visit the Engage website, and also see details of how to get to Maryhill Burgh Halls.
Celebrate ART is supported by Creative Scotland and the Year of Young People 2018 Event Fund, managed by EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate, The project is managed by Engage Scotland. This year, Scotland puts its young people in the spotlight, celebrating their talents, contributions and creating new opportunities for them to shine.
For information about the Celebrate ART project, showcase exhibition and images contact Sarah Yearsley, Engage Scotland Coordinator: scotland@engage.org / 01738 787137 (Monday – Wednesday).
