Young Curators, was a collaborative outreach artist-in-residency project between young people and three professional, practicing artists. The aim of the project was for participants to learn about visual arts, learn new skills, raise their self-confidence and discover their true creative potential, culminating in a highly professional art exhibition in the UCA Pop-Up Gallery.

As part of the gallery’s curatorial work, young people took part in a wider exhibition based on the interpretations of Richard Bach’s novel Johnathan Livingston - Seagull (1970). The exhibition was called Freedom for Passion and responses to the text could be performative, visual, conceptual and auditory with outcomes such as theatre adaptation, costume and set design, sound, live projection, performance, and imagery.

The exhibition opened with a Private View at the UCA Pop Up Shop on Saturday 14th July where the young people’s work was exhibited alongside professional artists.

In order to both encourage new audiences and exploit their creative potential, this project gave the participants the opportunity to learn about visual art from first-hand experience, being able to think like artists by experimenting with various mediums and processes, to gain a greater understanding and appreciation of art in the wider context and the connection to UCA provision.