WEBZINE ACC

Digital natives have spent their entire lives surrounded by digital devices. How should arts and culture education for this generation be different from that for older generations? How have arts and cultural organizations responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, and where should arts and culture education be headed in a post-pandemic world?

The ACC organized an international symposium titled Culture and Arts Education for the Digital Native Generation to share good practices from different institutions across Asia and identify key issues in the field.

Expert Talk 1. Designerly Learning and Generation Z
by Helen Charman, Director of Learning and National Programmes at V&A

The first expert talk was given by Helen Charman, Director of Learning and National Programmes at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) on Designerly Learning and Generation Z.

Charman highlighted the concept of designerly learning, the V&A’s approach where audiences are placed at the center of the museum’s education and experience.

The speaker stressed the need to understand digital natives, or Gen Z. She added that thinking and behaving like a designer could cater to young people who tend to keep their interest in the community and want to make an actual difference.

She gave several examples of how the V&A’s learning program worked with Gen Z to ensure empowerment through creativity and open up access to the creative industries. V&A South Kensington worked with a youth collective group to put together an Africa fashion exhibition. Young participants were acknowledged as professional collaborators and paid for their contribution which was recognized as a partnership.

She added these projects informed what Gen Z wants and expects from a museum experience. They want a museum that offers a new relationship and new content that empower them, as well as a space and platform for participation. This could help museum professionals revisit the way they work and consider meaningful alternatives.

Expert Talk 2. Learning: Emergent, Connected and Experiential
by Mark Miller, Director of Learning at Tate

The second speaker was Mark Miller, Director of Learning at the Tate Museum, who talked about Learning: Emergent, Connected and Experiential. He began his talk with questions like ‘Who comes to Tate?’ ‘How can we make use of our collections?’ and ‘What is learning?’

According to Miller, Tate’s goals for learning for the next five years is to create consistent programs to sustain relationship with local audiences; expand reach and visibility; expand encounters with the wider visual culture and creative ecology; and promote the value and creative function of art.

He presented several popular youth and family programs organized by Tate and discussed the impact each experience had on the audience. Among them was Uniqlo Tate Play, a shared public experience that allowed intergenerational audiences, mostly families, to communicate through art in a given space. The duration of participation varied widely, but the idea of being able to contribute to Turbine Hall, an iconic site for art, gave them a great impact.

Who are art museums for? Miller said they are an important space where young people can see their impact as a person and bring in their own narrative. He added it is crucial for artists to work and build trust with young people and instill a sense of ownership in them in order to understand their view of the world.

The expert talks were followed by four case studies, including a presentation titled M+: A New Museum for a New Generation by Keri Ryan, Lead Curator at M+ Pavilion. She gave an overview on M+ Pavilion Collective, a program engaging young volunteers and creative practitioners to coordinate workshops and conversations. She highlighted that young people are in charge of the program, while museum staff offers support. This shows a shift in the visitor experience at the museum, from passive to active participation.

The next case study, Cultural Engagement and Creative Learning in Performing Arts Venue, was presented by Raymond Wong, Deputy General Director at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts. Wong shed light on the center’s strategy to organize a series of activities such as participatory workshops to enable audiences to build knowledge through learning. He hoped this would make the performing arts venue a place of interaction between artists and audiences and a platform and an avenue to learning other than schools where audiences create their own art and achieve self-realization.

Tamara Harrison, Head of Children, Family and Creative Learning at Sydney Opera House, provided a case study on Creative Learning: I FEEL LIKE THERE’S MORE TO ME. She illustrated why creative learning is important in working with young people with two programs currently available at the institution.

The last case study was offered by Keisuke Innami, Chief Assistant to General Producer at Knowledge Capital, who talked about Knowledge Capital: The Strategy and Practice in Fostering Innovative Human Resources of the Next Generation. He warned that arts and culture education for the digital native generation should not be inundated with superficial information. Instead, it should strengthen their ability to develop imagination, thinking skills, and sensitivity. He also stressed the importance of cross-sectoral cooperation, adding that a combination of arts, culture and education would offer a source of innovation, eventually leading to the creation of new values.

The symposium provided an opportunity to examine what arts and culture education for future generations should look like and share efforts made toward this end by arts and culture organizations around the world.

In particular, the V&A’s approach to education was meaningful in that it entailed a shift in focus from collections to users (audiences). It was impressive to learn that it engages Gen Z from content research and planning and throughout project execution to ensure they shape the museum’s future together.

The event offered insights into how contemporary arts and culture organizations are discovering audiences through diverse programs and activities and using education to transform them from passive to active participants. It helped stakeholders reflect on where future arts and cultural education should be headed.

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