This partnership follows a successful collaboration in 2001 when Kids’ Own made a video of a workshop at Sligo Art Gallery.

The aims of the project:

• To develop a language for critiquing art amoungst the participants
• To build confidence to express opinions on contemporary art
• To give status to young peoples’ selection of art in a professional setting
• To broaden young peoples’ understanding and appreciation of the arts

Partners:

Sligo Art Gallery

Young Curators Reports

Read what the teachers and pupils thought of the Young Curators Programme!

“The Young Curators programme provided an educationally sound art appreciation aspect to our transition year art module. The students were immediately interested, and perhaps a little disbelieving that they would be placed in such a responsible position.
No discrimination was made on whether they had any previous art room experience and the whole premise was very inclusive. I feel each student will now approach any visual art exhibition with better knowledge and with more confidence in their ability to judge and appreciate art as a result.” By Aine Salter, Art Teacher, Ursuline College, Sligo

Personal Reflections from the pupils of The Ursuline Convent, Sligo

Viewing the Maurice Meade Exhibition:

“In September 2002, our class went to see an exhibition of Maurice Meade’s work displayed in the Sligo Art Gallery. The works of art were mostly done in oils and varied in style from abstract cubism to bizarre surrealism, some incorporating both into one painting with vibrant, yet often emotionally evoking colours and tones. Orla Kenny of Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership who was working with Sligo Art Gallery, helped to explain the paintings to us and all the possible meanings and themes they could convey. I found this experience and advice a great asset later when adjudicating the North West Artists Exhibition, as well as being worth while and interesting.” - Emma Mc Morrow

Adjudicating the work

“I was suprised at how difficult this task was for us to complete. I never expected it to last more than two hours. When we first entered the building it was hard to pinpoint any piece you really liked, as there was so much to look at. But gradually from walking round the various rooms and trying to take each work out on its own began to choose our twenty. We took breaks every once and a while to relax our eyes and refresh our brains and sometimes our crteria. It was very interesting to see near the end when we were writing up the artists’ name and title of work, that we had chosen all three pieces were from the same artist.” - Edel McGinley

A review of the North West Open Exhibition

“In my opinion, the exhibition was generally great. The Photographs and the sculptures were of a very high standard. However, there were a few amateur works, where it was easy to notice the faults in composition.(Where a painting lacked depth especially) or the limb drawing of a figure looked out of place and sometimes gave the impression that a lot more work could have been done. But those paintings were in the minority. Thankfully, there were not too many “traditional” paintings, eithera lot of work was very modern and attention grabbing due to their uniqueness, full of emotion thought and talent. “– Emma McMorrow

“I found that the standard of work chosen by the adjuctators was very high. While walking through and discussing the exhibition with fellow classmates I found a suprsingly large amount of overlap between the adjudicators and us and of course the three schools. I also found work that I wouldn’t have chosen as I found that it looked like the work of an amateur, as attention to detail was poor. I noticed that work in our final twenty which I expected to see wasn’t chosen by the adjudicators which proves to me that there is a difference in opinion between people especially when chosing works of art for an exhibition.” - Edel McGinley