Blue Train was a London Cultural Olympiad project with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London’s art education department. This project gives a clear illustration of arts education’s ‘co-curation’ approach in action. Centering on the co-operative values and revolutionary work of turn of the last century maverick pro-ducer Diaghilev and his Ballet Russe, Blue Train looked to engage 100 of London’s most vulnerable care leaver young adults as a new V&A audience. It did so by staging a co-curated, co-produced museum ‘take over’ inspired by the collection, led by
my-self as Creative Director and a swat team of artists. The message delivered in the art work by the young adults’ work was on the face of it surprising if you were to consider their birth right to awful disadvantage. Society offers them a poor prognosis, ranging from convictions, primarily for the men, to addictions, poverty and poor mental health. Expected to repeat a vicious cycle where the abused becomes the abuser of themselves or others. But it was this ‘outsider’ life experience that allowed them to see the museum’s collection for what it was. Interestingly they responded with zero tolerance to everything their sensitive radar picked us as unjust, unfair or down right cruel. This was however not expressed through anger, but through tenderness and a sense of play with serious intent.
When the core team of participants moved around the public galleries and private collections for the first time, the young women and men guffawed at the symbols of masculine potency in the sculpture galleries, effectively castrating ‘Samson Slaying a Philistine’ for a moment in time. Turning to me, a young man called Rasheed confid-ed; “men have changed since your day Alexis”. The men and women alike were great-ly surprised by the violence on display, presented as masculine control over the story of global civilizations. What for the participants was an authentic reaction, revealed much more to the institutions staff about their hidden bias in favour of ‘default man’.
The participant’s untrained eye easily spotted what was missing from the mainstream story. Made up of British African, Caribbean and Muslim men and women, it took the group just an hour to discover the V&A did not have a gallery for sub-Saharan Africa. They were making a b-line for it, simply assuming an institution with a gallery for every great civilization would have an African gallery. Something the museum staff had accepted as normal was now revealed as hiding in plane site. The V&A staff were forced to go away and find out why a whole continent was missing, later re-porting back that during the institutions main collecting eras African artefacts were considered savage.
Inspired the participants devised and staged ‘Circle of Power’, to condemn what they saw as ‘default man’s’ abuse of privilege. The performance played out the rise and fall of civilizations in the very institution that preserved the achievements of these global civilizations. Theirs was a call to change, towards a kinder and fairer society, a desire forged through their life experience, given a voice through art and solidar-ity. They held an unquestioning confidence in the institution’s power to give their message authority, and so took this opportunity very seriously. Recognising the per-formative nature of gender, they staged live art interventions posing as living statues, men and women that looked nothing like ‘default man’ in postures of dominance and control. They also co-curated site specific contemporary African dance and music in the galleries and co-created schools packs that brought their story into the V&A.
Blue Train participants were given free rein to co-curate their authentic response to the collection by the V&A arts education team. Through this process, they careful-ly empowered the participant to feel their lens is as valid as that held by the authority of the institution. On being granted permission these participants simply followed their natural urge to address inequality. What had been the barrier to the participants
stepping inside the V&A became the meaning that gave the art they staged reso-nance. This approach, developed by arts educators, has helped the wider institution to become less likely to run away and hide from working with people from different backgrounds. What is more, it offers professionals the gift of vision through another’s lens, to see what is hiding in plain sight. Blue Train participants built reciprocal rela-tionships with museum staff, so much so that some of their innovation and bravery rubbed off. A sub-Saharan gallery is now being planned at the V&A. This process empowered the staff to transform the institution from within.
Conclusion
This process of co-creation has given the arts educator and the audience permis-sion to challenge the institutions’ traditional world view. Sociologist Richard Sennett (2012) defines this co-operation as “an exchange in which the participants benefit from the encounter…to accomplish what they can’t do alone” (p. 5). Participant ‘take overs’ have the power re-configure the museum’s story. In targeting participants from extreme disadvantage arts educators give the institution stories by those tradition-ally silent or silenced. This could be understood as an unwittingly subversive act.
By repeatedly staging co-curation ‘take over’s’ arts educators are in actuality trans-forming the machine from within, gently carving out permanent change through the unceasing lap of the tide. Audience engagement success has helped arts educator’s elbow their way into decision making positions where they can push boundaries unchecked. In the new experimental topsy-turvy world they are re-configuring the role of audience from passive voyeur to active co-curator or even the art itself. In their drive to eliminate barriers to accessing art they are turning galleries into per-formance spaces, malls into galleries and streets into theatres of spectacle. Walls melt, art forms merge and hierarchies shrink – and within this cosmic soup of chaos new voices and stories are being told.
Is ‘default man’ relaxing his grip? Public displays of power and control don’t cut it today. So, it is probably fair to assume the institution is no longer serving his needs.
If this is true, the institution must find another master. Choosing to serve the major-ity means becoming more relevant, something that can only come from becoming conscious of fairer representation of difference. Institution’s hold power over how we perceive ourselves, if they can begin to accept us for what we are, then maybe we can start do the same.
References
Hayes, P. (2011). Arts audience insight. London: Arts Council England Publication.
Perry, G. (2016). The descent of man. London: Penguin Books.
Putman, R. (2007). Diversity and community in the twenty-first century. Stockholm: Scan-dinavian Political Studies Publication.
Sennett, R. (2012). Together. London: Penguin Books.