Tate Modern Visit
Circuit: Test, Risk, Change
by Lilly
London. A day to experience one of the capital's most known galleries, and take part in a discussion with the creators and participants of Circuit, a programme to help young people express themselves artistically.
I was invited to the Tate Modern Art Gallery on the 6th of November alongside my friend Amir who also takes part in ArtMix sessions. Rachael, who works with young people at BALTIC, invited us to accompany her and Vicky, the Head of Learning, to a presentation and discussion around the project ‘Circuit’.
We arrived at the Tate Modern at noon, then got to quickly check out a few exhibitions before the meeting began. The meeting started and the creators and young adults who took part in Circuit spoke about their 4-year experience working and participating in the project. Afterwards there was an open discussion with several people who work in the arts mostly based around London and Manchester. We talked about different artistic charities for young people and how to inspire most people who aren’t usually interested or intrigued by art to visit galleries and museums, and see different artistic mediums instead of just viewing art as a painting on a canvas.
Once the Circuit meeting finished, I got some free time to explore the gallery and culture myself, as much as possible for a few hours. I visited the Hyundai commission: Superflex one, two, three, swing! which really reminded me of the Playground exhibition at BALTIC in 2016. I loved the fact that the swings had multiple sets in one, to me this sparked the idea of the importance of being close and sharing experiences with others no matter how small of an experience it is. At dusk I went to floor 10 which housed a 360 degree view of London’s sunset. This was the highlight of the whole trip because I felt extremely inspired and it was so fascinating to watch all the different colours of the sky morph into one another from such a height.
After our meal at Leon’s, we sat and played artist top trumps on the train back to Newcastle and Rachael taught us how to play ‘CHEAT!’.
I was questioning if we could complete all this in a day, and was unsure if we could experience it all, however we went to London, had a fantastic discussion in the Circuit meeting, viewed many inspirational gallery exhibitions, watched the sunset over London’s skyline and got back to the North East all in less than 24 hours which shows you can experience as much as you allow yourself to in one day. That is one of the most important things I learnt from our arty trip to the capital!
Written by Lilly
