“Museum: Next Gen.”

Young Museum Collective (18- 25)

 

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Watford Museum is piloting a new programme, Museum Next Gen, for young people and we want you to be a part of it!

For budding new creatives interested in the heritage sector, friends between the ages of 18 – 25 to act as a fresh voice and form a museum collective. This programme will enhance your skills set with the aim of giving you a greater chance to overcome some of the obstacles that young people currently face in joining the museum sector.
 

Watford Museum is committed to providing opportunities for young people to engage with the museum and its collections. This programme will empower young people by providing them with a platform to showcase their creativity and perspectives, while also developing their skills and knowledge in the museum sector. It offers 4-8 young adults in Watford the chance to develop the skills and experience needed to start a career in the cultural heritage sector. That could mean a future career working in a museum, an art gallery, at a heritage site, in libraries and archives or an arts organisation.

As part of our pilot cohort, you will play an integral role in helping us test this programme and learn from it so that we launch our formal Museum Next Gen cohort next year.
 

Participants will gain the knowledge, skills and experience to help start a career in the arts and culture sector. The project will involve:
- Learning how to undertake historical research
- Learning how a museum works
- Creative final project
- Working with others interested in an arts careers
- Meeting a range of professionals from the heritage sector
- Object handling
- Feeding back ideas for the new museum

There will be fortnightly in-person sessions on Wednesday evenings, 5.00pm - 7.00pm, at:

Watford Museum
194 High St,
Watford
WD17 2DT

These will run 22nd May – 17th July 2024, and we expect participants to attend each week. 

 

Timeline For Pilot programme:

The Museum: Next Gen pilot programme will run from May to July as a condensed iteration.

Recruitment and selection of participants                                             

• Closing date for submissions of interest                                                Thursday 9th May 2024
   

     May 2024 – July 2024

• Confirm place on the programme with participants                            By 15th May 2024

• Programme runs every other Wednesday from                                   Wednesday 22nd May 2024

• Final session                                                                                             Wednesday 17th July 2024
   

Indicative Programme (some speakers/sessions may change according to availability)
 

Session 1:  22nd May 2024
 

Introduction to Programme and museum sector Museum Collections Management
 

Session 2: 5th June 2024
 

Public Programming / Historical Research.

Session 3: 19th June 2024

Curation: Exhibition development,

Session 4: 3rd July 2024

Final project wrap up

Session 5: 17th July 2024

Celebration & Evaluation

 

To join Watford Museum’s Next Gen Collective, you will need:

- to be aged 18 to 25 at the time of making your application.
- to be living or studying in Watford (Watford Borough and surrounding areas* up to 5 miles)
- to have an interest in the cultural heritage sector (this includes museums, arts organisations and charities, libraries and archives, historic buildings and heritage sites, archaeological and conservation roles).

This Programme is FREE, and participants will receive refreshments and reimbursement of travel costs.

We invite interested young people to complete the attached form telling us why you are interested in this project.  The deadline to apply for a place on this programme is 23:59pm on Thursday 9th May 2024.

Please Apply here: https://forms.office.com/e/266PhQSEJU
 

Commitment to inclusion

As the future of museums, we hope the cohort can seek to readdress the current inequality seen throughout the museum workforce in the UK. We welcome young people from a range of backgrounds, we’re interested in developing talent from those who identify as belonging to following:

• Working Class backgrounds

• African, Caribbean, South Asian and other global majority heritages

• LQBTQIA+

• Without formal qualifications (GCSE, A-Level, Undergraduate degree etc)

With a commitment to change, inclusivity, equality and collaboration, we are looking for passionate individuals to come together to help us make an impact. We are looking to create a diverse cohort, with a range of experiences and voices; so even if you’ve never had any experience of museums, but you love history, this might be the perfect place for you!