This youth week event is part of a greater project funded through Creative communities grant, in collaboration with Te Uru gallery, with a small fee paid by participants. Since the beginning of term one, 9 young people (15-18) have been developing their photography skills, and will exhibit at Te Uru Gallery in May/June.
During Youth week the young people will be supported to develop activities for their whanau, friends, teachers and the wider community to engage in as an ‘activation’ of their exhibition.
This will include a family/children's activity to be done in the gallery space in response to the photographic artworks, a virtual participatory activity where people can use a social media tag to share their own photographs of the area, and a celebratory event where people can discuss the perspectives shown by the young people in their artwork.
We hope to extend the impact of the whole project through enabling the initial 9 participants to share their mahi, and encourage other young people to share their perspectives too. We want to create an event which is exciting and showcases the values, ideas and place young people have in our suburb. We also want to engage other young people in the arts, and give them an idea of what participation could look like for them, hopefully so they are more confident to participate in opportunities in the future.