Every few years, a question reappears on social media regarding museums and young people in museums by themselves and just like clockwork, the Scotsman ran another article title: Why we need to give kids the freedom to learn for themselves by Cameron Wylie was published.  The issue was around allowing a 10 year old into a museum on their own. 

There is always much debate around this so I ran a Twitter Poll

Now two things:

1. I’m an idiot.  I said I was going to run the poll for 5 hours and ran it for 5 days.
2. I knew it was going to be contentious so decided to not get involved in discussions as I didn’t want to sway any opinions.

I’m back from Helsinki where I was invited by Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) to help produce and oversee an intense week-long framework for young people in Helsinki to take over 6 specific museums.

The concept:

Young people think up new ways of working #munmuseo events 

Young people between 16-20 years of age and art museums in Helsinki will be working together to find new ways for the youngsters to embrace  the art museums´ artistic content and facilities.

The establishments involved are  Amos Anderson Art Museum, Ateneum Art Museum, Design Museum, HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Kunsthalle Helsinki, Sinebrychoff Art Museum, thirty youngsters employed by the City of Helsinki  and six  youth workers coaching the youngsters. The munmuseo project run by the City of Helsinki Youth Department co-operation of the British Creativity, Culture and Education organization.  Read the rest of this entry »

‘But museums are free!’  I hear you say. 

Yes, but many nationals and mostly in London (with exceptions). I live in lovely Shropshire where the story is very different. And my experience is the same in many rural areas.

While this has been a topic for quite awhile the recent decision by the Field Museum in Chicago has made the topic come to light again.

Why don’t museums/galleries give free entrance to local people?

This is a question I kept asking when Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery opened in April 2014 after being closed for 5 years for renovations and costing £10.7 million (£200,000 more than originally budgeted and delayed by 3 years) and then (after tax payers monies contributing to the renovation) they had the gall to charge an entrance fee – something they had said they would not do when asking for votes of approval.

Read the rest of this entry »