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Young People

Manchester Art Gallery is a space where young people can socialise, build networks with peers and professionals, try out creative activities for pleasure, education and career development, and influence what happens at this city-centre institution.

group in trading station

Our informal group for 14–19 year olds is called Creative Consultants. Outside of school and college hours, we hold creative meetups, plus bigger events, projects and exhibitions.  

During Creative Consultants meetups, we use art to explore ideas and address issues that affect young people and the broader community. 

Making art part of our lives, and using art spaces to connect with each other, sets us up with skills and ambitions for life. We welcome all young people and encourage people of all backgrounds to get involved. No previous art education or knowledge necessary.

You can connect with us and keep updated on Instagram @MAGcreatives

If you join our mailing list, we’ll keep you updated on all youth-focussed activity. You can choose whether or not to take part in the activities on offer, and can ask to be removed from the list at any time.

To find out more or join mailing list, contact us

young women in gallery

Manchester Art Gallery is a Useful Museum, which means our art collections and gallery spaces are used for social and cultural change. We’re looking for more ways to give young people a louder voice in our gallery and city – and that’s why we work in partnership with youth organisations and providers throughout Manchester.

We work with youth organisations and providers to co-deliver sessions and projects for the benefit of the city’s young people and wider community. We challenge ideas, find new ways of doing things, and create opportunities for young people.

We have experience of co-production, and value the breadth of expertise that exists within our communities. We see benefits in working intergenerationally and interculturally.

young women in trading station

Current areas of interest include fashion and style, climate change, decolonisation, Black Lives Matter, and education and careers futures for young people during and following the pandemic. And, of course, we’re interested in hearing what you and the young people you work with care about.

Previous partnership projects include Old Tools New Masters New Futures with Contact Young Company and Young Identity, which explored what it means to decolonise public culture. And Manchester Youth Council worked with us and artist group Investigate Arts to produce a film called Still Lives as part of our MAG Art Club project.

If you work with young people and are interested in partnering with Manchester Art Gallery, contact Kate Day, Learning Manager

der zivilist

We work with Manchester’s higher education students to ensure they and the programmes they are on are enriched by and actively shape the city’s cultural offer.

We want students to feel at home here – both in the gallery building itself and in our city.  By nurturing talent and promoting all the amazing things the city has to offer we hope to retain these emerging professionals who are the future of our thriving city.

We love the way students and lecturers bring the newest thinking and ideas into our gallery and work with gallery staff to introduce them to other gallery users through our collections and resources.

Der Zivilist work

Our recent exhibition Bellotto: Views on a Fortress featured art work by Der Zivilists, a collective of five artists from Manchester School of Art’s Unit X project.  These contemporary art works were shown alongside paintings from the gallery’s collection.  Unit X and Manchester Art Gallery worked together to present ideas around how historical stories are told by artists and curators, how value is made, and how gallery users might experience art differently.

To make things happen please contact Kate Day

Bellotto: Views on a Fortress