In 2010 Red Square Kibosh, a group funded by the Arts Council’s Young Ensemble Scheme and the Butler Gallery, received a Leargas Youth In Action grant to develop this curating programme. Young people in county Kilkenny, aged from 16 to 18 years, were invited to join Red Square Curates.

‘Over to the left a bit…’

The Red Square Curates group worked together over a four-month period which culminated in ‘From Us, Through Them, To You’, an exhibition curated from the Butler Gallery Collection.

Barnstorm’s Outreach Officer, Anna Galligan began working with Red Square Curates in February 2011 by designing and facilitating sessions including ‘Creative and Critical Thinking’ and ‘Communication and Research’.  Anna also provided support in terms of group dynamics, team work and learning styles. In April she accompanied the group on a trip to Tate Liverpool to a youth-curated exhibition.

The Red Square Curates group at work in Butler Gallery

Co-facilitating with Jean Tormey (Butler Gallery Education Officer) and artist Etaoin Holahan, Anna worked with the group as they explored the Butler Gallery collection and made the challenging journey of selecting the pieces they would like in their exhibition.

The young people worked on the articulation and cohesiveness of their choices. They felt it was important that the journey to their selected pieces was part of the exhibition. To this end each piece was accompanied by prose which told the visitor why the young person had chosen the piece, how their relationship with the piece changed during the process and had some factual and critical analysis of the piece.  The young curators felt this would help their peer group to access the exhibition.

Invitation to Red Square Curate’s exhibition From Us, Through Them, To You

‘From Us, Through Them, To You’ ran from 24 June to the 25 July 2011 at the Butler Gallery exhibition space in Kilkenny Castle.