Hello all, my name’s Rebecca and for the past seven months I have been a part of Birmingham Museums’ Youth Forum, Ignite. I initially joined Ignite after completing a two week work experience placement at Thinktank.

Read More...

Ignite is Birmingham Museum Trust’s Young People’s Forum for 16-24 year olds and though we have not written a blog post about them for a while, that doesn't mean they haven’t been busy! Ignite began nearly 3 years ago based initially at Thinktank with many successful projects and outputs such as this film with Sir Mark Walport, the Government Science Advisor. They also produced this unique art instillation in response to the Spitfire aircraft displayed in Thinktank.

However, this summer Ignite moved over to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to expand their engagement with the Trust and work on projects relating to art and history. Their first project idea, generated by the group, has been to develop new tours of the gallery that they will lead. Read More...

In our third and final instalment it is time to show you Hidden Stories on display! If you’ve been following the blog you’ll know that Thinktank's Young People's Forum, Ignite, have been working on, an art instillation called Hidden Stories, linking together some of the connections between the Spitfire aeroplane and other historic items on display at Thinktank. (Read the previous blog posts about the Hidden Stories project and Creating Spitfires).

This week has been installation week in preparation for the launch of the new Spitfire Gallery and the artwork this weekend. It has been all hands to the deck to construct the giant sculpture of wooden ‘paper’ planes, designed by artist Matt Reeves, as you can see here. Read More...

A few weeks ago I introduced the latest project that Thinktank's Young People's Forum, Ignite, are working on, an art instillation called Hidden Stories. Time has been flying by but the instillation has been making good progress, worthy of an update...

In last week's meeting the group had a very exciting arrival... 51 model Spitfires! These planes form an integral part of the instillation and will be hung from very thin wire to look as if they are flying through the air. This is an early artist impression of the piece but gives the general idea- Read More...

Having delivered a wonderful Teen Takeover Day in November Ignite, Thinktank’s Young People’s Forum, have recently been working on an exciting project that ties in with the new Spitfire Gallery, opening in March.

With diverse backgrounds and interests Ignite came together in December 2012 as group through which young people could have a voice within the museum, volunteer in their community and gain life-long skills. The group meets fortnightly and is responsible for every element of the projects that they work on. Read More...