Aberystwyth Arts Centre has won the Best Family Arts Activity Award in Fantastic For Families Awards 2024
Aberystwyth Arts Centre is thrilled to share that they have won the Best Family Arts Activity Award in the Fantastic for Families Awards 2024 for their exhibition Teulu / Family. These national awards celebrate outstanding opportunities created for families and older audiences to access creative opportunities and enhance wellbeing through arts and cultural activities.
Teulu / Family was a unique six- month project where four families worked with Aberystwyth Arts Centre to co-curate a major art exhibition. It was a project that aimed to be innovative, break new ground and which tried to find new models of working that put the public at the heart of decision-making. At its core, the aim was to break down the barriers that prevent family audiences from enjoying and taking part in the arts.
Teulu/Family was an Arts Council of Wales funded exhibition with commissions funded by CELF, the national contemporary art gallery for Wales. CELF is a partnership of eleven venues across Wales, including Aberystwyth Arts Centre, working together to create and deliver opportunities for people to be able to enjoy artworks from the national collection.
Jack Sargeant, Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership, said:
“Llongyfarchiadau to all involved in Teulu / Family!
“This fantastic – and now award-winning – exhibition shows the benefits and potential of CELF’S new dispersed model, with items selected from across the national collection displayed alongside newly created items. By involving families so closely in its creation and curation I’m sure the exhibition will have inspired many more to enjoy and engage with the arts, possibly for the first time.”
Award-winners were selected out of over 150 applications, initially shortlisted to 26 organisations from across the United Kingdom. Each of the shortlisted projects were recognised and celebrated by the Family Arts Campaign through sharing their Stories of Family Arts engagement, ahead of the winners being announced.
Installation picture showing specially commissioned interactive weaving table by Crafted Space Architects and interactive sculptures by Ella Louise Jones funded by CELF- National Contemporary Art Gallery Wales.
The Best Family Arts Activity Award celebrates creative events and activities developed especially for families. The judges for this category were Sarah Mears, Programme Manager at Libraries Connected and Zoe Dennington, Head of Learning and Participation at the Crafts Council.
“We loved the TEULU/ FAMILY Exhibition—we thought co-creating an exhibition with families was really ambitious. The final show looked so vibrant and inviting—you can really see that the families’ choices shining through.”
– Zoe Dennington, Head of Learning and Participation at the Crafts Council
“It was really inspiring to see the range of activities in this category. We were particularly impressed by how the shortlisted organisations had involved families in the planning and development of activities and the real care and empathy they had shown in creating inclusive and accessible high-quality family arts.”
– Sarah Mears, Programme Manager at Libraries Connected
“We are so happy to receive this award, thank you so much to the 4 fantastic families that worked with us over 6 months to realise this co-curated exhibition, they opened our eyes to new ways of working and transformed our gallery into a welcoming and inclusive space for the whole family.
A huge thank you to all the artists in the exhibition, our partners Amgueddfa Cymru- National Museum Wales, National Library Wales, School of Art Museum and Galleries Aberystwyth University, Culture Colony, Plant Dewi, Flying Start and Families First. Thank you to the Arts Council of Wales and CELF- National Contemporary Art Gallery Wales for funding this project”
– Ffion Rhys, Curator Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Elin Vaughan Crowley, Artist and Project Co-ordinator.
Fantastic For Families Awards are given by Family Arts Campaign, which is the largest national, cross-art form initiative to increase access to arts and culture for families of all ages. The Family Arts Campaign is funded by Arts Council England and is a National Portfolio Organisation within the national Let’s Create strategy. Visit https://www.familyarts.co.uk/2024-winners/ to find out more and see the full list of Fantastic For Families Awards winners.
Teulu / Family was a unique six month project where four fantastic families worked with Aberystwyth Arts Centre to co-curate a major art exhibition- made by families, for families. It was a project that aimed to be innovative, break new ground and which tried to find new models of working that put the public at the heart of decision-making. At its core, the aim was to break down the barriers that prevent family audiences from enjoying and taking part in the arts.
Together we went through all aspects of usual exhibition production- the idea/theme/aspiration of the show, selecting the artworks, writing the interpretation panels and labels, deciding on the layout of walls, the placement of works in the space and in relation to each other and ideas for the opening event, marketing and gallery activities.
We came to understand that there aren’t many opportunities for families to take part in creative activity together as a whole unit- parents often go off to do one thing, while the children do a different activity, which was also identified as a priority in research carried out by The Audience Agency – Arts Connect Research: Family Access Scheme, 2016.
Through all of this process, we learnt that parents or carers sometimes feel that the gallery isn’t a space for them- they often worry that children might not be interested in the art, they might break something, make too much noise or run/slide on the floors- as galleries are often large wide-open spaces, and often more akin to libraries. They also felt that the artwork was often for adults and not targeted at children, with nothing additional for them to ‘do’.
We found that children love colour, sound, touch, movement, play and creating- not too surprising- but how would we include these elements in a gallery full of fragile valuable art?- that was the conundrum. How were we going to create a space that went towards making families feel that it was OK to come in, stay, enjoy, take part if they wanted and feel that it was their space?
We worked in partnership with National Museum Wales – Amgueddfa Cymru, National Library of Wales and the School of Art, Museum and Galleries, Aberystwyth University all of which hold amazing national collections that belong to us all. We wanted the families to have access to these important artworks and to give them the choice of selecting what they thought would represent their ideas, themes and aspirations. What they created was a joyful exhibition which welcomed over 7,750 visitors and was a real celebration of what family means to them.
The ‘white cube’ and straight edges had disappeared, and every wall was a different colour painted in curves with artworks hung at child height as well as adult height. The families even created their own ceramic and animation artworks in response to, and to show alongside their chosen artworks by Picasso, Ceri Richards, Kyffin Williams, David Hurn and Claudia Williams. The artworks spoke of spending time together with those you love – around the table at home, in nature, at the seaside and in the mountains. Their concerns about the preservation of our natural world for our future generations and climate emergency was also reflected in the works selected with photographs depicting rubbish collected on our beaches. The children chose more colourful and abstract works, children’s book illustrations depicting animals and creative play and also moving image work. The families also commissioned artists to create new interactive artworks in response to the themes of the exhibition- a ‘weaving table’ where the whole family can create together and interactive playful soft sculptures that move around the gallery.
On the families suggestion, Bendant the pirate and Rt. Hon. Elin Jones MS opened the exhibition, who commented that:
“This is the noisiest private view I have ever been too!, how refreshing it is to see so many families here, this is how it should be.”
The exhibition was on show during the Spring this year and we were very proud that it was chosen to launch the exciting initiative CELF – National Contemporary Art Gallery for Wales, which at its heart aims to give access to our national art collections through showcasing the collection in 9 partner galleries located throughout the breadth of Wales.
There are many unexpected outcomes to this project- the numerous requests from the artists selected to meet the families- having chips on Aberystwyth prom with David Hurn was a definite highlight! and the ceramics curator for Aberystwyth Art School asking if they could work with the families to curate another exhibition is a wonderful legacy. What we have learnt through this has far surpassed our expectations, and we are still learning from it, it has had a ripple effect throughout the whole Arts Centre team, and its visitors. The gallery is full of people of all ages, enjoying what they see, taking part in creating together, with less worry about noise or playing and how they are ‘expected’ to behave. Ultimately it has changed the way we work and changed attitudes as to what a gallery space can be- which is a space for ALL.
Links to films: Promo: https://youtu.be/8FxJ2DD3IrQ?si=t3pEzCUXZsXW3ICo Longer film: https://vimeo.com/941576543
Social media: @aberartscentregallery | @aberystwytharts | #FantasticForFamiliesAwards2024
