Providing access to the creative industries can open up new pathways for young people, art professionals and teachers alike, resulting in the acquisition of life skills and the activation of fresh ways of thinking and perceiving the world around us.
In this MuseumNext talk, I share insights on the interconnectedness of creative learning at the museum. How our onsite object based learning activities inspired our online work and then, in turn how the online content became the catalyst for evolving the department's onsite art making activities, resulting in a new hybrid model for learning.
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Another pioneering programme, ahead of its time, placing humanity at its core. The Hero Inside Programme was devised in 2010 by the Creative Director Trevor Blackwood.
This programme transcends cultures by providing opportunities to explore diversity within the framework of our shared humanity. By providing a safe platform to discuss and express our differences, negative stereotypes and personal biases are dispelled providing a unique space to value our stories and connect to our ‘hero inside’.
This pioneering Community Cohesion project fostering cultural diversity through the creative arts and critical thinking is even more relevant today (2020) than in 2008.
Today, this project would give young people, teachers and the wider community a clear context for the Black Lives Matter movement that is currently sweeping across the UK and globally, by looking back at history we can understand the present.
At the end of May, I was invited to join Ithraa: Inside Stories panel discussion on Smart Opportunities. It was an ideal platform to share the experience of leading the development and delivery of a nationwide government reform project for the Ministry of Education, designed to meet the challenges of economic diversification.
In the Sultanate of Oman, the government is now, more than ever, sharply focused on diversifying their economy and investing in education to prepare the nation's youth for an economic landscape that will be significantly different from today.
So how can museums and different cultural settings help to build capacity in this field?