Youth arts boost as Gallery 37 returns
Gallery 37 , Birmingham’s long established youth arts participation programme, is set for a major return in September 2016 with a new look and a new home. This year’s Gallery 37 will take place in and around Millennium Point , at the heart of Birmingham’s ultra-modern Eastside learning district.
Gallery 37 will provide free creative skills training to over fifty young people finding themselves outside of education and employment. This year the emphasis will be on learning and developing practical skills, such as coding, songwriting or fashion, to be delivered by recognised industry leaders including ACE Dance & Music, Apples & Snakes and The BBC Academy .
2016’s new-look Gallery 37 will feature community outreach workshops, public performances and industry work placements. Gallery 37 is to be produced by the award-winning Birmingham-based arts and cultural agency, Punch Records .
Punch has a history of successfully delivering high-profile youth arts projects for over a decade, with one recent project currently on the shortlist for the prestigious national Arqiva social action award.
Punch CEO, Ammo Talwar MBE said: “Punch is excited to be heading up Gallery 37 this year. Millennium Point is the perfect contemporary setting, and we will be bringing top practitioners from successful local creative businesses into the programme.”
Cllr Ian Ward said: “We are delighted that Gallery 37 is returning in such a modern and dynamic fashion. 2016 is Birmingham’s Year of Arts and Young People, and Gallery 37 demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the Youth Promise and backing our local creative people.”
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NOTES TO EDITOR
GALLERY 37 was initiated by Birmingham City Council’s arts team in 1998. It developed from a model of creative arts training, set in a ‘canvas village’, that was pioneered in Birmingham’s sister city of Chicago. Initially delivered in tents in Birmingham city centre, it quickly established an identity, style and reputation of its own, providing a format appropriate to the creative training and support for young people in the UK’s second city. Gallery 37 is a registered trademark of Birmingham City Council.
PUNCH RECORDS is the UK’s leading music development agency, based in Birmingham and with a fifteen year history of delivering groundbreaking public programmes, including 2011’s ‘Jamaica Live!’ and their annual festival, BASS. Last year alone BASS drew an audience of 33k people for ten days of events in the city. Punch works nationally and internationally; touring and commissioning new work, and supporting emerging artists. Punch also delivers Barclaycard and Global Radio’s ‘Music Potential’ creative development programme for young people in Birmingham, working with over 700 young people over the last three years.
