History of Art student Chloe Lund talks writes about her involvement in the Young Curators project.
"Being involved in the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists' (RBSA) new Young Curators project gave us the invaluable opportunity to curate a new exhibition of artwork by current RBSA members. The scheme provided a rare insight into the inner workings of an art gallery. As well as the obvious advantage that this experience will give us when applying for jobs in a similar field, our public speaking, communication and organisational skills have improved with immediate benefit to our academic confidence. And having learnt about all of the considerations and steps that must be taken to put on an exhibition has really heightened our awareness of these decisions when visiting other art exhibitions.
This year we have been taken on as archive interns, which means that we are responsible for responding to archive enquiries from the general public and also that we were able to curate another exhibition, this time of works from the permanent collection. Being able to handle historic works of art and important sources such as old minute books and exhibition catalogues is really exciting because it is this sort of first hand research that forms the foundations of the art history that we study at university. In the archives, we have found many potential topics for new art historical research that we might like to pursue in the future."