Page 179 - FINAL_Guildhall Media Highlights 2019-2020 Coverage Book

28 November 2019

The learning revolution: how learning departments are

driving cultural change

How can cultural spaces become spaces of learning? And how can learning spaces become cultural
spaces? Jenny Mollica reflects on the experience of Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning as it
reaches its tenth anniversary.

Ten years ago London’s Barbican and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama came together, united by a shared
vision of what is possible when an international arts centre collaborates with a world leading conservatoire to
shape and deliver new approaches to engagement with the arts.

Since then the work of Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning has grown and evolved in ways we wouldn’t have
thought possible. We now work locally, nationally and internationally with people of all ages and backgrounds,
delivering more than 40 programmes alongside 150 partners to more than 22,000 participants every year.

We work across the art forms – music, theatre, dance, visual arts, film and poetry – on wide-ranging programmes,
activities and events designed to empower people to develop creative skills for life.

More often than not learning departments are now the

engine rooms that drive and stimulate the big questions for

cultural institutions

These include our free multi-sensory play offer for under-5s, Squish Space; our flagship schools programme
Barbican Box, which has featured artists such as Complicité and Michael Rosen; our London training centre for
the world’s first disabled-led youth orchestra, the National Open Youth Orchestra; our Community Views of
Barbican exhibitions for local community groups and charities; and the annual Chronic Youth Film Festival