In today’s Story from the Museum Floor, Vicky Grant, Family Programme Coordinator at Manchester Museum talks about the museum’s resident creative college Project Inc. and one of their students, Jay, who has decided to share his own Silver Arts Award project online for all to enjoy.
For more about Project Inc. and the fantastic work they do, please see their website.
The Project Inc. space at the Manchester Museum (source)
Learning through Creativity at Manchester Museum
Project Inc. is a specialist creative arts college, for creative education in the North West, focusing on creative study pathways for 16-25 year olds. With 4 bases, one being in Manchester Museum and all in none-school settings, Project Inc. offers an alternative learning environment, as well as a Creative Study programme. Part of this programme also includes Arts Award.
Arts Award is open to young people ages 7 to 25 and aims to inspire young people to grow their arts and leadership talents: it’s creative, valuable and accessible. Arts Award can be achieved at five levels, Discover, Explore, Bronze, Silver and Gold (four qualifications and an introductory award).
“For my Silver Arts Award, I needed to complete a leadership activity and for this I chose to create a tutorial for the museum to use. The work is connected to the Beauty and The Beasts exhibition which I have used extensively in my creative work for my award.” – Jay, Project Inc. student
Some examples of the work produced by Project Inc. students (source).
Way back in March 2020 in a very different world Jay began working towards his Silver Arts Award. He met and spoke with Freelance Creative Practitioners about their work and arts practice at Manchester Museum, he spoke with Curators and Learning colleagues to find out more about our learning and engagement programmes and discovered more about supporting different learning styles when designing an activity, as well as finding out more about what to consider when facilitating activities and working with different audiences.
Jay was particularly inspired by the Museum’s Beauty and the Beast exhibition, and decided to explore how he might create an activity for others to engage with linked to this exhibition. As you can imagine, with lockdown came a lot of rethinking, and a new brief. Whereas before, Jay was working towards creating an activity to be facilitated in person and shared with museum visitors – in our physically distanced world he began to think about digital engagement and how he could share his activity online.
With careful planning and piloting, we’re very grateful to Jay and delighted to share his Arts Award resource as part of our blog, as Jay has taken such thoughtful care to create it, and sharing it as a gift to all to enjoy. You can find Jay’s resource here, with further craft resources here.
Victoria Grant
For more about Project Inc. and the fantastic work they do, please see their website.
Stories from the Museum Floor 