Hello world!

We are the 2021/2022 cohort of the GoMA Youth Group. We are a group of young people aged 16-25 passionate about inclusivity, diversity and how we can uplift communities through engagement with the arts. In this blog post we will be introducing ourselves, what we’ve done so far, our values, our mission and what we plan to do in the upcoming months.

The group first met in November last year and have since then been spending time getting to know each other and each other’s interests and views. In our meetings we have spent time the galleries, sharing our thoughts about the collections and the displays. We have also met with some of the curators who work with Glasgow Museums, had a talk, Q+A and workshop with artist Matthew Rimmer and our very own Leo Valenti hosted a zine making workshop for us to get our creatives juices flowing! Leo also collaborated with another group member, Eden Bø Dower, to develop a new visual identity for the Youth Group’s social media pages that represents us and our spirit.

While we are all passionate about the arts, we feel that most institutional spaces are still very much inaccessible and/or unwelcoming to many. We spent a lot of time speaking about how it can feel that a degree of knowledge is required to access these spaces. This feels intimidating to us. We also recognise that this means that a lot of people whose voices and experiences deserve to be heard, represented and celebrated often aren’t. It means that a lot less people get to enjoy art in these settings! 

We all want to be part of a change where spaces like the GoMA can become more open, inclusive and representative of young people in Glasgow and beyond. We feel that art is an amazing tool for connection, and this is exactly how we want to use our time with the Youth Group – to create an inclusive space where we can connect.

Our plan is to host a series of events where alongside other community groups, we respond to the collections at the GoMA. We hope that in this way, the work we do in the gallery opens it up to people and strengthens connections to the collections that might not have been there before. We want to make the gallery a space where we value highly voices that were previously unrepresented. We hope that we can achieve this by inviting people to the gallery and showcasing their ideas here. 

We are so excited about our upcoming programme of events! Keep up to date with what we’re doing on our socials where you can hear about the fun projects we have ahead of us. 

Images ID:

1. A circular logo of a character with long purple hair flying either side of their face .They are wearing a yellow jumper with a purple outline and on it ‘GOMA YOUTH GROUP’ is written. Colours are bright, neon yellow and green.
2. A screenshot of an online meeting showing 10 different faces in squares. each square has a different lighting and background.
3. 7 people facing different directions around a table with flat artworks under a glass display. The people are all looking in different directions in a white gallery space with framed art on the wall.
4. A projecting screen with different logos, illustrations, colours and fonts. On the left a person with brown hair (Eden) is is sat on a chair caught in the middle of talking, hands in the air.
5. On the top right corner, a person (Erin) with blonde hair is drawing on a table. On top of the table, many illustrations on paper, and things scattered around (scissors, phone, reusable water bottle, paper cups)

Follow us on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goma.yg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoMAYouthGroup

Twitter- https://twitter.com/gomayouthgroup

Isabella Wagner