National Museums Northern Ireland is planning an exhibition entitled Rhythms of the Year for 2012 that will look at themes including seasonal cycles and coming of age ceremonies around the world. It has recruited a youth panel to guide its development. New links have been forged with organisations, helping the museums to improve staff skills in youth participation approaches and to reach a new constituency of young people. The first Cultural Olympiad event was an open weekend that included a live dance event with Arts Ekta, a Belfast-based South Indian arts group. A workshop was held with some of the young dancers that included discussions about museum objects.
An awareness day for the creation of a youth panel was held in early 2010. Since then, a panel of nine has been recruited.
This summer will see a three-day summer school take place. This will involve training in areas such as object handling, conservation, documentation and exhibition design. The regular monthly panel meetings will move to more of a workshop format and look at actual objects and whether and how they correspond with chosen themes. As 2012 approaches, the aim is for the panel to take on an increasing degree of control of how the project progresses. A second round of recruitment is planned for October 2010.
