O impacto das políticas culturais no desenvolvimento de programas para jovens na Tate (1989-2019)

Abstract

The participation of young people in museums, as an independent audience, with their own interests and motivations, is a recent phenomenon. In the last decades, in particular in the UK and the USA, there has been a growing investment in programmes targeting this age group, between 15 and 25, with prominence for long-term and peer-led initiatives – with and for young people. This paper focuses on the development of the youth programme in Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, identifying key moments between 1989 and 2019, based on the analyses of reports, policy briefs and other relevant publications. This analysis considers the shifts in the cultural policies and consequent public and private funding opportunities in the UK, highlighting the epistemic tension between access and excellence, and the role of the Arts Council, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch) and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Although the first initiatives for youth at Tate were influenced by a social responsibility agenda, concerned with misrepresented groups in museums, the journey that was drafted over the last 30 years was one of autonomy. Today the youth programme has a central profile not only within the institution but also nationally and internationally. Its sustainability is grounded on a practice-led research approach, central to Tate’s education programme, that allows for fluxes of influence to be drawn, through which the voice of the museum and its interlocutors – young people, educators, partner institutions – can have an echo in the cultural practices and policies of the future.

Keywords

• cultural policies and museums
• Tate
• museum and education
• museums and young people
• audience engagement