Tate Announces Youth Initiative

The Tate has announced a new, over eight million-dollar national arts program aimed at young people in the UK. Circuit: A National Youth Network for the Visual Arts, which will begin in April of 2013 with a festival held in the Tanks at the Tate Modern, hopes to reach 80,000 teens and young adults ages 15-25 over the next four years, allowing them to engage with art and artists' practices.

The opening festival, developed and produced by and for young people, will be organized by Tate's Young People's Program and Tate Collective. It will run for three days and feature a series of installations, performances and workshops by artists, designers, gastronomists and musicians exploring the idea of the "six degrees of separation." Tate Collective will work with emerging artists and schools across London on various art collaborations, including a mass-participation piece that will incorporate work by young people throughout the UK.

Circuit is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, which currently celebrating its 25^th anniversary, having given over $322 million in grant money since its creation. Tate has five national partners in the Circuit initiative from the Plus Tate network: Firstsite, Colchester; MOSTYN, Llandudno, North Wales; Nottingham Contemporary; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; and Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn, in collaboration with Kettle's Yard, Cambridge.

Jane Hamlyn, chair of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, said in a press release, "We are delighted to be supporting Circuit, as a national youth initiative, working through a group of fantastic organizations including Tate, with high ambitions for reaching and opening up the arts to so many young people in the UK."