Youth Panel

Our Youth Panel is made up of 10 young people aged between 16 and 25. Youth Panel members represent young people’s views on our work at Kids in Museums, lead their own projects and feed into Trustee meetings through our two Young Trustees.

Since the Youth Panel launched in 2019, members have:

• taken over the Arts Council England Instagram account
• held their own Takeover Day at Borough Road Gallery
• presented at our Kids in Museums Conference
• created an online exhibition, Objects Declare Emergency
• contributed to our online careers resources
• programmed their own training events for museum staff and young people on anti-racism and food poverty
• planned and delivered a Museum Youth Summit and shared the findings.
• created a podcast, Life at the Museum.

If you are interested in working with our Youth Panel, please contact Laura Bedford, Head of Programmes: [email protected]

Lauren Blake

Lauren is currently a Learning Ambassador at the Courtauld Gallery and volunteer in the Sir John Soane’s Museum Learning Team. She is an MA History of Art student at the Courtauld Institute of Art with a BA in Modern Languages from Durham University. Before moving to London, Lauren volunteered at Tullie House in Carlisle, a museum she has loved since having parties and sleepovers there as a child. After graduation, she is looking forward to developing her career in arts and heritage education and, ultimately, hopes to return home to help Art History become more accessible to young Northerners.

Connor Brown

Connor currently works with the National Trust at Belton House, developing programmes for children and young people as Visitor Experience Officer. He is a recent graduate of the University of St Andrews, completing both his MA Medieval History and Archaeology and his MLitt Museum and Gallery Studies there. Connor has worked in museums and heritage sites across Scotland and the Midlands in England, engaging visitors and building exciting exhibitions. Thanks to his Scottish roots, he is a lover of knights and castles at heart and can often be found near ruins during his free time.

Tamera Carrington

Tamera currently works as a Marketing Officer at National Coal Mining Museum for England. She is an MA Medieval Studies graduate from the University of York, with a BA (Hons) in History from the University of Chester. As part of her MA course, Tamera received training in working with archival material and developed an interest in making museum and archive collections easily accessible to all. Alongside studying, she worked as a student ambassador and volunteered as a Rainbows Leader for Girlguiding. In her spare time, Tamera enjoys reading, visiting historic sites and listening to music.

Luke Conlin

Luke is a Politics and International Relations graduate and former civil servant. He has previously undertaken internships with the Guildhall Museum and British Museum, where he was responsible for improving youth engagement through the creation of exhibits in underrepresented areas of history. Luke is invested in promoting engagement amongst underrepresented communities and advocating for the importance of local museums.

 

Sofia Cotrona

Sofia is an emerging curator and art writer with an MA Honours in History of Art from the University of Edinburgh where she is currently pursuing an MScR in Collections and Curating Practices. Passionate about cultural accessibility, she advocates for grassroots cultural practices that centre the voices and needs of young people and historically marginalised communities. She has pursued this by joining the National Youth Arts Advisory Group and consulting with Creative Scotland on inclusive youth-art policies supporting programming and youth-led funds. She aspires to a career in curation that integrates engagement approaches and charitable efforts to foster intergenerational practices, to promote access for everyone to arts and culture.

Madeleine Gillett

Maddie is currently studying History at A Level – one of the reasons she is so passionate about heritage and exhibitions. Alongside her studies, she has a passion for social action and campaigning and she wants to see history become more inclusive, believing everyone deserves to enjoy history in an accessible and stimulating format and no one should have to struggle to discover their own heritage.

 

Hannah Grant

Hannah is in the final year of a Liberal Arts BA at the University of Nottingham, covering a range of topics throughout her degree including media, memory, and popular culture, lived experiences of neurodivergence, and attitudes towards whales across human cultures. She is particularly interested in how heritage sites and cultural institutions can be spaces of participation and social change and hopes to make museums more inclusive and accessible – both in the stories they tell and the ways that they tell them. Outside of university, she can be found climbing, open water swimming, or short-track speed skating!

Lydia Mei En Kempton

Lydia is studying for her final year of A-levels in Classical Civilisation, Art and Moving Image Arts, as well as an Art History EPQ – all of which have furthered her appreciation for history and heritage. She has always been fascinated by museums, finding them to be both a cultural and historical hub. In the future Lydia hopes to work in the creative sector, making arts and culture more accessible to younger generations. Outside her studies, she has volunteered as an English mentor and participated in the Ethics Cup competition.

Ria Mehta

Ria is a recent History graduate from the University of Warwick and will be starting her MA in Museum Studies at UCL this September. Throughout her degree, she volunteered with the Learning Team at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. This sparked her love for making museums more accessible and interactive. Ria continues to volunteer at the Bushey Museum & Art Gallery, and she will be helping the UCL Multimedia Anthropology Lab in an experimental VR heritage project. She hopes to create spaces that are more inclusive for people who belong to underrepresented communities.

Carys Louisa Owen

Carys is a History of Art BA student at the University of Oxford, set to graduate this summer before undertaking a History of Art MA. Having volunteered in a variety of local museums in Leicestershire and Warwickshire, she is enthusiastic about making sure young people gain the best experiences possible from museums. In her current research, she focuses on how heritage sites can share alternative narratives and engage more diverse audiences through participatory contemporary art projects. Outside of her academic life, Carys is an active brass band musician and loves creating and consuming as much art as possible.

Naina Sidhu

Naina is studying for her A-levels in History, Philosophy and English Literature, and is fascinated by how social change manifests in art, particularly film. She values the importance of encouraging young people to personally engage with politics and history to help them better explore their own cultural identity and that of others. Naina hopes to create more decolonised spaces in museums, finding that they serve an invaluable function in communities. Fascinated by all things to do with the sixties, you’ll probably find her watching documentaries about Woodstock.

Iris Sirendi

Iris is currently finishing a curatorial Fellowship at the Museum of Liverpool as part of Curating for Change. She is passionate about social history and the stories that connect us all. As well as disability history, she’s excited about sharing the wonderful things that have shaped her life: working-class history and the incredible cultural heritage of migrants in the UK. Iris is also an archivist at Bradford’s Estonian House, working to repatriate its collections with the Estonian National Archives. She hopes to continue challenging underrepresentation in the arts and believes that everyone deserves to see themselves represented.