Ruth Sack
SCHOOL outings to the museum … Does this conjure up dark images of well- meaning but remote guides leading footsore trails of children? If so, you must be a bit of a museum-piece yourself.
Because things have been changing. At the Johannesburg Art Gallery, education officer Dammon Rice is developing a programme in which the museum guides are kids. Lively, streetwise teenagers, who see the artworks completely afresh, they are learning not only to appreciate the works themselves, but to find ways of transmitting this understanding to other children (and perhaps to adults, too).
The idea is not new. In San Francisco’s De Younge Museum, it has been put into practice for over 15 years. Called “The Young Ambassadors’ Project”, it was this museum’s response to the extraordinarily mixed ethnic make-up of their population, and the difficulties they had in reaching (and drawing in) all these different communities.
The idea took hold in Rice’s mind when the National Youth Development Forum approached the gallery for help in drawing up a proposal (about “culture/empowerment/skills” for the youth). And so, the “Young Ambassadors” in Johannesburg came into being.
It soon became clear that the young guides were not going to need years of History of Art 101 in order to introduce their audiences to the pleasures of art. Rice and her team were able to pare down the training period to two or three weeks for each presentation.
Talking about art with 15- and 16-year-olds, she discovered that seemingly difficult and obscure works become accessible and easy (“even obvious”) in the process of discussion.
For the pilot programme, three schools sent four volunteers each. The tour they are preparing will deal with aspects of the Right to Hope exhibition, opening on September 17. This time they have all been trained in English; but most of them speak several languages, and since they will be using their own kinds of words, we might find a whole new vocabulary enter our art-lexicons. If so, it’s about time.
Interested teachers or potential volunteers (who need not have studied art) can phone Dammon Rice at (011) 725-3180/4/5