Arts Award Conference Reflections
On 16th July, through my arts placement with Rhythmix and Artswork via the National Arts Council Singapore, I attended the Artwork Arts Award Conference to learn more about Arts Award, their new platforms and the role Artswork play as the South East Arts Council England Bridge Organisation.
The morning started with an opening address by Jane Bryant (Artswork CEO) showcasing the diversity of participants from all different art forms at the conferences and the areas they came from.The highlight of the morning was undoubtedly Sir Ken Robinson's opening speech where he described the value of the arts to young people and the use of arts as a celebration of human imagination, because of the non-linearity in our lives. He went on to present a social experiment he did on twitter asking his followers to describe their lives and the results were fascinating, one follower quote his life path as: ‘Studied business degree, became a composer and now running a cheese shop’.
The whole day was live blogged and you can check that out here
Arts Award
We were shown a short film about the Arts Award programme and how Arts Awards empower youth and what surprised me most was that the film was directed and edited by CYP doing their Arts Award bronze program under Millstream productions. The production values were extremely high and could have easily passed off as professional grade work. After the video was shown the CYP were given a chance to reflect and discuss their work. Inspiring stuff indeed! You can check out that amazing video here
ArtsBox
We were also introduced to Artsbox,which is a brand-new, social media space where you can safely record arts experiences and share with others. Young people can use Artsbox to create a digital portfolio to achieve their Arts Award, and Arts Award advisers can use Artsbox to support young people and assess their progress. The free Artsbox App makes Artsbox even more flexible and easy to use.
Arts Award Voice
Arts Award Voice is an online magazine that offers features and advice and encourages young people to feedback and share content about their Arts Award project. Young People can sign up for a free account to add blogs, reviews and events, or simply browse the site to find out more about the arts, arts careers, and how best to complete their award.
Music Education Hubs and Arts Award
After the morning opening talks we moved onto a range of workshops and my chosen topic was about sharing best practises of Music Education Hubs. The session was lead by the South East . The conversation included discussions about
· new ways they are getting projects funded through partnering with Military Bands and associations such as the Portsmouth Chinese Association
· cross art forms working which gives a lot more scope and angles for funding
· having international and national partners which helps a Music Education Hub's status and work on commissions and projects
· developing great partnerships
· having meaningful conversations with schools and organisations who were involved in arts award as key to their success in delivering the projects
· setting up a key network of Arts Award advisors and supporters (venues etc)
Arts Award Case Study – developing young people and organisations
The second half of the day I attended the Arts Award case study group and was paired with the Bronze award and the Millstream Productions team, I really enjoyed that what Millstream and their young people set out to do which was to involve their professional level of work in an Arts Award setting. We were presented with their idea books, bonding trip stories and they explained in depth the technical and editing skills they picked up from the project - from the industry 2 camera setup, 3 point lighting led panels they used, to the rotation of roles to ensure that the learning covered all bases. It was interesting to note from the pictures that and how they spoke at how far they've progressed on a personal level and in terms of their skills and outcome, which is evidence of the success that the program has had in impacting on and enriched their lives. Millstream also began this project from being an independent contractor doing work for Artswork to being an Arts Award supporter, so both young people and organisation have shown progression in various ways.
Arts Award Reflections
Having not known much about Arts Award prior to the conference , I was really impressed by the benefits of the framework and opportunities it provides for CYP to get involved in the arts and to be recognised for their work and progression. We do not have a like for like system like this in Singapore but I very much look forward to exploring ways for me and the other 3 Singapore arts placements recipients to look into bringing a model like this for our CYP.