Andreia de Oliveira Nobre goes to Edinburgh's Fruitmarket Gallery for an engaging show created, curated and installed by young people.
A two-year education programme developed by The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh and the Lothians has culminated in a lively exhibition of works by more than 90 young artists aged from seven to 18. Opt in for Art provided a programme of activities funded to engage socially excluded children and teenagers with contemporary art.
All aspects of the preparation for the resulting exhibition involved young people; from making the artwork to curating and marketing the show.
The Opt in for Art exhibition, which runs at the gallery until May 6 2007, presents various works produced by the young artists in workshops and other projects and features drawings, films, animations, installations, sculptures and other objects.
The programme started with the young people directly experiencing, seeing, discussing, interpreting and sharing art on show at The Fruitmarket Gallery. From here the artists - supplied with materials, support and encouragement – showed their engagement in creativity with great vitality and a sense of humour.
A dive into the abstract world is displayed on one of the walls of the main gallery space. The digital project Alterego explores issues of gender and identity through photos of teenagers and their imaginary alter-egos. The composites present a wide range of possibilities about their real personality and who they might or could be according to their own interpretation of the reality.
Animations projects which ran at schools are also full of promises about the hopes and dreams of young minds - those featured in the show bring their stories and discoveries to the screen .
It’s like their voices are finally beeing heard - and they seem to have a lot to say about everything, which was one of the main goals of the programme. Crossing the frontiers of the subjective nature of news reporting, the P4B Post, a community newspaper created by pupils from Clovenstone Primary School is another conduit for their ideas – which reveal astute observations of life.
Produced by 28 school pupils with the local Herald and Post newspaper, it’s available to all visitors to pick up. Other interactive works can be appreciated even from home, with two audio works featuring the comedic tale of a political refugee whilst a schoolgirls’ view of the city of Edinburgh can be downloaded as podcasts from www.mpsix.co.uk.
About 2,018 children and young people from primary and secondary schools and youth groups have taken part in the programme since March 2005, so this engaging exhibition showcases a small sample of the work produced through the Opt in for Art scheme.
The Fruitmarket Gallery is one of Scotland’s publicly funded galleries showing contemporary art and the present exhibition and educational programme is funded by the Scottish Arts Council Lottery Fund and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
