Creative Consultants

Creative consultant acting as a Regency Emma in M1 Creative consultant taking part in a making session Detail of a drawing by a young person

Young people exploring and interpreting the collections

The Creative Consultants are a group of young people aged between 15 and 19 who meet regularly to explore the collections and interpret artworks for their peers.

They meet at weekends at the gallery and work on a variety of projects led by different artists. They explore the collections to interpret artworks for different audiences. This can be through events, trails, or using new types of interpretation in the galleries.

Visual Dialogues 2010-11

This year's project has focused two new acquisitions by the Turner prize winning artist, Grayson Perry. These are an etching: Print for a Politician, and a large ceramic vase Jane Austen in E17.

The group have spent time exploring the themes of these works,>including class politics and identity, art versus craft, appearance and reality, old and new, labels and text. They have worked with gallery curators and artist Jim Medway to create a range of responses to these works. These include:

A collage of objects from Manchester Art Galleries collections of costume, prints, ceramics combined with contemporary objects sourced by the young people
A short film showing two regency ladies on a shopping trip through contemporary Manchester streets
Customised wardrobes displaying items from our costume collection

Highlights of this year's project have included:

Trips to the stores of Manchester Art Gallery and Platt Gallery of Costume where the group discovered all sorts of unseen items!
An overnight stay to London visiting the V&A Museum, Tate Britain and Victoria Miro Gallery
A trip to Fab Lab in Manchester
A trip to Gallery Oldham ceramics exhibition
Working with Futureworks to make the regency mini drama

Have a look at photos of the project on Flickr

The Creative Consultants will be running a public event on Saturday 12 February 2011 3-5pm. Drop in an take part in activities created around the display.

Visual Dialogues 2009

In their latest project, called Visual Dialogues, the Creative Consultants have been working with artist Katy McCall to create dynamic interventions in our current exhibition of Goya prints: Fantasies, Follies and Disasters. In September 2009, this exhibition was joined by a sculpture on loan from Tate by Jake and Dinos Chapman, Disasters of War. The Creative Consultants' task was to create interpretation to link the historic Goya works with the contemporary Chapman piece.

They had some amazing ideas which were pitched in a Dragon's Den style session to gallery staff. The final outcomes include:

a display of the young people's etchings made at Hot Bed Press
an installation of TVs with film footage showing aspects of the project overlaid onto imagery of war from the media, as well as cartoons
a print-making activity where visitors can make their own images

Highlights of the project include:

Working with printmaker Martin Cochany at Hot Bed Press in Salford to create etchings based on imagery of war found in the media
A visit to Tate Liverpool to work with the Young Tate group
An overnight trip to London where we visited White Cube, Imperial War Museum and Tate Britain
Working at Futureworks Media School with Mike Cacioppo Jr to create film pieces for the interpretation
Meeting Jake Chapman and Tim Marlow at the Friends' In Conversation event. Jake also signed books and drew pictures for all the young people
The launch event on 28 November 2009 for families and friends

Check out the day we spent at Futureworks, or have a look at some of our etchings on Flickr.

Visual Dialogues Exhibition Launch from Asta Films on Vimeo.

Join Creative Consultants

If you are aged between 15-18 years and enjoy looking at and talking about art, then get in touch. Anyone can join Creative Consultants. You don't have to be studying art at school or college: all we ask is that you have a curious and open mind. We are always looking for more young people to get involved.

Visual Dialogues

Visual Dialogues is a partnership programme managed by Tate working with Manchester Art Gallery, Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service, Museums Sheffield and Tyne and Wear Museums. The programme is jointly funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Children, Schools and Families as part of the Strategic Commissioning Programme for Museum and Gallery Education.