This multimedia project brings together leading contemporary photographers with more than 170 young people from diverse communities across the country. Together they have created a series of vox pops that explore the hopes and fears of today’s sixteen year-olds. These give prominence to voices rarely heard.
Tate Exchange will host Sixteen this summer with a curated selection of works from the series. The space will be animated by a host of workshops and pop up events led by local young people and the photographers involved. Each event will open up the discussion about what it means to be sixteen, inviting audiences of all ages to consider their memories of our aspirations for this pivotal age.
This project is led by photographer Craig Easton and in partnership with Open Eye Gallery. Tate Exchange is one of four venues hosting the project across the city-region this summer. Find out more information about the project and see the full list of photographers involved.
Programme
Should the voting age across the UK be lowered to 16?
Saturday 3 August
10.30 View portraits specially selected from the wider SIXTEEN portfolio
11.00–12.30 Debate
In the studio, 1st floor
Join us for a lively and stimulating debate with guest speakers young and old, who will set out their arguments for or against the motion. A discussion with the panel and audience will follow, co-chaired by Ella Benson Easton and BBC Radio Merseyside’s Roger Phillips.
The call for debate is the result of candid conversations with many of the young people across the UK who collaborated with us to create SIXTEEN.
Sixteen years old past and present
Tuesday 6 August – Sunday 11 August
10.30–5.30
In Tate Exchange
Join Emily Bryant and share your memories about what it means to be sixteen.
Are you 16 years old? Would you like to take part in a workshop with a relative or someone you know from an older generation?
This activity invites you to create a photographic and audio work that explores the similarities and differences of being sixteen years old today compared to previous generations. Work produced during the workshops will be exhibited later in the year in Open Eye Gallery’s Digital Window Gallery.
All participants are asked to bring along a photograph or object containing a memory of being sixteen, which will aid conversation between the two generations.
Hopes, Fears, Aspirations – a series of takeover workshops and events
11–16.00
All events are free and on a drop-in basis in Tate Exchange
Monday 12 August
Join us for an interactive sculpture workshop inviting you to add your own advice to your former, current or future sixteen-year-old self. The group will guide you through the process of taking part and audiences can watch the sculpture grow over the course of the day.
Wednesday 14 August
We invite you to a mid-week musical jam. SIXTEEN photographer Jillian Edelstein invited her young collaborators to share their favourite song as part of their personal story. Inspired by this, the girls are inviting you to add your memorable song to a musical mood board. Listen to everyone’s song on a timed playlist throughout the day to hear the collective music memories of sixteen-year-olds past and present.
Friday 16 August
Join us for the group’s final day at Tate Exchange. Participate in a polaroid portrait workshop where you will be able to display your own portrait and story in the space for one day only.The group will also have a number of smaller activities and a chillout area during their week take over in the space, which connects to their focus on supporting health and wellbeing for and with young people.
To coincide with the showcase of SIXTEEN at Tate Exchange, Open Eye Gallery is delighted to be working with a local group of young women from Creative Youth Development (CYD), VidA Creative Learning and photographer Suzanne St Clare for this series of takeover workshops and events. CYD is part of Children Services in Wirral.
Each workshop has been developed by VidA Creative Learning and will be delivered by the young women, with events inspired by the themes emerging out of SIXTEEN.