anchor

		"If the Art Gallery is successful in its purpose we will see that the manners of the people will become softer and less uncouth than they are at present, for they cannot see pictures and mix with others as they will doin this room without being cheered and instructed and lifted to a higher level" Alderman Brownhill, Mayor of Walsall, speaking at the opening of the new Walsall Art Gallery in 1892
		"The New Art Gallery for Walsall exists to provide all the people of Walsall with a cultural and educational service of the very highest quality, and to act as a focus for civic pride and community identity; its artistic programming, the presentation and development of its collections and its access and interpretation strategies propose a model of how art galleries can contribute meaningfully to twenty-first century life and culture; as an art gallery of outstanding excellence it seeks to disseminate its work as widely as possible, thus drawing national and international attention to Walsall and its achievements." Mission Statement for Walsall's New Art Gallery, opening in 2000
		Over the last five years Walsall Museum and Art Gallery has given priority to pursuing longer term strategies of interpretation, events and education which aim to engage people, and especially young people, with museum collections and the historic and contemporary visual arts in richer, more imaginative, more rewarding and, often, more informal ways.
		As a result Walsall now attracts a much higher proportion of visitors who would normally be defined as non-traditional attenders of arts venues. Simultaneously, there is a clear and growing recognition in Walsall's small team that we are all, in the visual arts community, only just beginning to understand the magical possibilities of bringing art, artists, buildings and so-called 'audiences' into closer, less didactic and more open and sustainable relationships.
		Galleries at their best are not just sites for spectatorship, for being "lifted to a higher level" as expressed in the Mayor of Walsall's wonderful espousal of the imperious Victorian cultural missionary position. They continue to be inspiring temples of beauty for some, but they can also offer a warm invitation for people to participate in the arts and to express their creativity in a context that links contemporary life in all its disarray.
		Walsall's philosophy is based on the assumption that audiences are much more sophisticated, demanding and critical than they are assumed, or more importantly, allowed to be and that, contrary to the often broadcast prejudices of burnt-out critics, sensationalist tabloid journalists and jaded politicians of all parties, people are far more interested in and supportive of galleries and of challenging contemporary art in particular. Our aim is to create a museum and art gallery that is a stimulating, provocative yet non-threatening space in which visitors are encouraged to feel a sense of ownership, involvement and participation and where there is an ethos of informality and unembarrassed interactivity.
		Walsall's recent interpretation of education initiatives have ranged from the lowest technologies - jigsaw puzzles, 3-D constructable models, zeotropes with 'cartoon' art strips - through to the higher technologies of multi-media, video animation and video conferencing. Collections and exhibitions have been explored through commissioned music, dance and writing as well as by interventions of a wide range of visual artists. In projects such as The Good, The bad and the Ugly, visitors have been invited to share and display their written responses to artworks, whilst in The Word from Walsall, they have left their videobox imprints, sparking cross-community video discussion. A series of exhibitions, including The Peoples Shows, have opened up a critical debate on the nature of collecting and the purpose of museums and galleries, enabling essential and long-term public dialogue about cultural objectives and the mystique of professional practices.
		START - The first interactive art gallery for 3-5 year olds, held in 1995 after 3 years of consultation and experimentation, was perhaps Walsall's most ambitious project to date. The extraordinary, if little known, Garman Ryan Collection - the collection of the Epstein Family - was brought to life through a variety of new, creative experiences for an often overlooked audience. Fourteen thousand visitors came to experience art as they never had before, of which at least ten thousand were under the age of five. For many parents, carers and group leaders, as well as children, it as their first experience of an art gallery, provoking frequent demands for START to be a permanently available facility.
		This would be impossible in out current premises - an Edwardian building with a 1960's extension which fails to provide the facilities people have come to expect and demand in the 1990's. Appalling physical access arrangements, insufficient space for collections, especially for contemporary acquisitions, no dedicated education space or library/information provision and only one toilet (a particular challenge during the START project!) means our fierce commitment to engagement is frustrated by a building well past its sell-by date.
		Fortunately we now have an Historic opportunity to remedy this with the creation of a new-build, purpose designed £21 million art gallery, funded by the Arts Lottery, ERDF, City Challenge and Walsall MBC. It is located in the heart of the town at the top of Walsall's main shopping street on a new Gallery Square, currently being designed by artists Richard Wentworth and Catherine Yass.
		The brief from the beginning has been to create a gallery of architectural distinction and of international quality with galleries of world class standard matched, crucially, by the ambition to create a national model of excellence in accessibility to the visual arts. It should demonstrate a highly visible commitment to arts education and interpretation, building on the success and failures of the work undertaken to date.
		Selecting the right architects has been a critical task. We wanted to have the opportunity to explore ideas and to work in creative collaboration with an architect, to develop the design rather than commission something complete and non-negotiable. Thus in 1995 Walsall held a Two-Stage International Architectural Ideas Competition, judged by eminent local and national figures, resulting in a shortlist of six, predominantly younger and less established practices, from which the winners, London-based, Anglo-Canadian architects Caruso St John were chosen. Since this time a close and fruitful relationship has developed.
		Caruso St John demonstrated extraordinary responsiveness to the brief, and to Walsall as a place. They proposed an art gallery tower with a series of six interconnected floors, each with their own character and function. Responding sensitively to the intimate, almost domestic, scale of the Garman Ryan Collection they have created a 'house' for the Collection at first floor level. Entering the front all the visitors will be able to move around the reception rooms, each with its own window, before moving by stairs or lift to the 'bedrooms' above. Beyond this house are the exhibition galleries of international specification and, at 6m clear height, of a completely different scale to the Collection galleries below. At the top of the art tower a roof terrace, winter garden, restaurant and conference/meeting spaces provide flexible areas for public enjoyment, with views for miles around.
		However, it is the discussion of space for interactivity beyond the galleries that has proved especially exciting. Our starting point has been to insist that interactivity and education is not embarrassing, worthy or dull, but should be full frontal, and easily accessed by all the visitors to the new gallery. Rather than hiding 'education' spaces away in dingy, windowless basements, with unattractive 'hose-down' surfaces, the principle in designing the new gallery has been to ensure that the educational spaces will be of equal quality to the gallery spaces.
		Thus on entering the building the first space encountered by the visitor will not be a shop or a cafe, but the Discovery Gallery with adjacent dedicated cloakroom and toilets which will make the provision of START a permanent feature, enabling dynamic experiences of historic and contemporary art. On the next floor, overlooking the Discovery Gallery, will be an Education Workshop (we're still struggling for a new title) and an Art Library/Resource Centre, including areas for children's enquiry, teachers' training resources and new technology access. An internal staircase then links to the next floor with a further Education Workshop and an Artists Studio, opposite the entrance to the Garman Ryan house. These spaces are conceived of as a Children's House, within the larger art house that is the gallery, making possible interlinked programmes for groups, often involving artists' contributions, moving through the house over a period of a morning or a day.
		During the development of the design we traveled with the architects to galleries in Britain and Europe, enabling mutual concerns and aspirations to emerge through talking and looking. A particular inspiration to all of us was the Louisiana Museum, just north of Copenhagen. Here a Children's House of extremely high quality and beauty, matching the specifications of the gallery areas and employing leading Danish designers, has opened adjacent to the Giacommetti Gallery and is proving to be a significant draw from across Denmark. It is precisely this parallel quality of usually discrete 'curatorial' and 'education' spaces that we wish to achieve in Walsall.
		Interactivity will not, however, be confined simply to the Children's House which could soon be conceived of as an acoustically-isolated 'educational ghetto'. It is envisaged that interactive initiatives and activities will take place in all areas, including the collections and exhibition galleries, the Gallery Square outside and on the Arty Boat. A specially converted barge, the Arty Boat, will be moored on the adjacent canal basin and be available for memorable trips through the distinctive industrial landscape of the Black Country.
		With construction now under way, we are working with Caruso St John on the finer details of design including the ways in which the building can meet the specific needs of young people and be easily comprehensible to them. Our primary task is to plan in great detail the ways in which Walsall's art house will be brought alive through first-person interpretation, exhibition, education, events programming and, most of all, through the encouragement of a spirit of discovery in all who visit. It is a large and ambitious project but one that excites all who become involved with it. As we work towards the opening in the summer of 1999 and the 40 metre high art tower rises into the Walsall skyline, it is literally a case of 'watch this space!'
		Peter Jenkinson, Director, The New Art Gallery Walsall
		This article was first published in 1997 by Engage, the journal of Engage, the National Association for Gallery Education, 1 Herbal Hill, London EC1R 5EJ. tel 0171 278 7092.
		top