Berlin Exchange Visit
The Young Producers were invited to attend a youth conference at Berlin Jugend Museum in Schöneberg on 7th December 2024. Thanks to funding from the UK-German Connection Fund, we were able to plan a weekend of collaboration with our new friends the Critical Young Friends, the youth group based at the Jugend Museum, discussing issues that affect young people accessing museums across Europe.
Thank you so much to our hosts, including Jasmin, Kabir, Jonas, Malte and all the young people for providing such an amazing weekend for us. It was also lovely to meet young people from Take pART at Dordrechts Museum in the Netherlands.
Some of the amazing things we learned, experienced and discussed:
👂 Adults who run museums should take young people seriously, rather than saying that serious issues should not be addressed by young people. Museums can provide a different, peaceful room for protests and are a place to reflect on these issues. The rise of social media means that young people are now more politically engaged than ever – museums should capitalise on this.
👐 Museums need to be more welcoming for young people rather than being so formal. New ways to interpret exhibitions, such as through interactive soundscapes, poetry and concerts can help this. Museums should be much more interactive and hands on.
⏰ Education systems prioritise academia and ‘homework’ over young people’s free time. This means there is not much free time when museums are open for young people to go to museums. The Dordrechts Museum regularly opens until 11pm to address this.
💰 Young people in the Netherlands and Germany are paid for their participation in these programmes and act as ‘experts’ – without this, many would not be able to take part. This is the norm in Europe, but not yet in the UK. The Critical Young Friends have been supported by a 200,000 Euro budget over four years.
🖼️ We also had the opportunity to experience a parkour tour of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin Global – a hugely interactive exhibition at the Humboldt Forum, plus the opening of the Critical Young Friends’ interactive exhibition about Protest which takes up an entire floor of the Jugend Museum. Plus, a tour of some important Berlin sights, including the Berlin Wall Memorial.
We look forward to welcoming our new friends to the UK in 2025 for an even bigger collaborative conference to act on some of these points we discussed and are already excitedly planning!
"It was interesting that most museums in Germany and in the Netherlands close at 8pm where in England they close at 5pm the latest. Some are open later which has been beneficial for young people to visit museums but the barriers of the workload young people are under, limited opportunities and not listening to young people's views still pose challenges for young people to engage with museums. It was also interesting to learn that the young people in the Netherlands and Germany are paid for their participation in the youth programmes they are involved with whereas it is on a voluntary basis in the UK. It was interesting to see the difference between the programmes we are all part of but to know that some of the barriers we face were very similar."
I enjoyed meeting other like minded young people, seeing what they had done with the space they had been given in the Jugend Museum, sharing ideas and realising our similarities despite our different backgrounds. I learnt a lot about how museums across Europe are run differently and the innovative ways other young people are engaging in the sector. For example, the sensory art gallery tours that take pART do.
We should absolutely try and continue our collaboration with the Critical Young Friends and Take pArt, hopefully with more time spent at museums across Europe including the UK where possible.
I enjoyed meeting other youth groups the most as it gave me insight into how they interact with their own heritage and culture. It also gave us a great chance to discuss different ideas for our respective museums and galleries as well as talking about the struggles we each face.
The protest exhibition inspired me the most as it made me realise how much of the Germany we know today is only as it is now due to protests and people speaking out for what is right. It also demonstrated the power an individual has over their own agency, especially in regard to the protests over same sex marriage.