The Youth Curator Project:
Cultural Literacy and AdolescentsKIRSTIN EVENDEN, PROJECT COORDINATOR, GLENBOW MUSEUM
Background
The Youth Curator Project which took place in Alberta during 1994-95 gave teenagers and adults an opportunity to develop cultural literacy skills. Teens were encouraged to think critically about material culture and to connect it to their regional identities and to their community's past. Adults, including museum staff, learned about the culture of today's youth, with the intent of building longterm relationships with teenagers. The Glenbow Museum was the senior partner in the project and worked in collaboration with the Sir Alexander Galt Museum in Lethbridge, the Red Deer and District Museum, and the Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery.
Each museum recruited about ten local high-school students, and museum staff worked with a teacher in each participating school. The project began with students brainstorming and choosing their own exhibit topics. The group in Calgary chose The Influence of the Media on Youth. In Medicine Hat the teens chose Youth and Violence in Medicine Hat, in Lethbridge, where we worked with ESL students, the chosen theme was The Family and Youth. In Red Deer, the group chose Teen Sub-Cultures Found in Their Own Community.
Promoting Cultural Literacy
Each group chose an exhibit topic that addressed a particular social issue and collected artifacts from contemporary popular culture. Each exhibit also explored a particular historical event from the community's past which related to youth experience, and provided a forum for the linking of contemporary youth issues to the heritage of each community. Throughout the course of exhibit development teens enhanced their critical-thinking skills; skills that are becoming increasingly important for young people in the 1990s. As "Youth Curators", the students utilized objects, text, images, photos and video to communicate ideas and messages to viewers. They also learned how to research topics, had training in interview techniques and received workshops on video camera operation and in storyboard evaluation. They enhanced their presentation and public speaking skills by leading youth workshops on the issues covered in their exhibits. Finally, the teens learned about the purpose and functions of museums and were made aware of possible career opportunities in the cultural field, a work sector that is mostly invisible and inaccessible to young people. Perhaps most importantly, they realized that museums are places where they can express their views on social issues of concern to them and their peers.
To illustrate, in Lethbridge, less than half of the ESL students had visited the museum before the project began.
As a result, the museum became an integral part of the culture of these young people. It also provided those who had recently immigrated from places such as the former Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong an opportunity to learn about local history and about current realities that affect them in their new environment. Yet it is interesting to note that most of the work for this project was done in the high school the students attended. They resisted creating a "traditional" museum exhibit and focused on ways they could create an exhibit which was comfortable, accessible, and inviting to them and their peers.
Some Implications of the Project
The Youth Curator Project confirmed that critical-thinking skills do not come easily. As for museum staff, they
were challenged about the role of history in a community and had to constantly re-examine their whole approach to museum work. In Calgary, for example, the teens who worked on the AIDS exhibit questioned whether there was any point in presenting the epidemic within a historical context. This led to a debate about why we should even bother to look at history. Museum staff suggested that students also provide some history to show how AIDS is different from other epidemics, especially with respect to attitudes about morality and sexuality. They emphasized how history is not separate from contemporary society and that it informs our every day lives. These exchanges assisted students in making connections between the materials they worked with and the potential meanings contained in these materials.
The great distance between the culture of young people and the history of their local community was evident, yet the Youth Curator Project demonstrated that museums can contribute to bridging this gap.