From the beginning, the National Museum of Mexican Art has strived to be a different model of a museum.
As a former Chicago public high school teacher, I saw a tremendous need to invest in our youth. Unfortunately, I saw so many young people not having access to so many things that other young people had access to in their lives. Consequently, I created the Yollocalli program, affectionately referred to by the young people in the program as Yollo.
Prior to starting Yollocalli, I visited nationally recognized arts education programs for youth. Interestingly, none were done by museums and all seemed to be carbon copies of one another. These arts programs all bragged about their excellent grades and college admissions track records for their students. When I visited these programs, I saw young people who were all getting super good grades in schools. The participants were all very quiet. I thought I was inside a library. This was not the model I wanted.
The Yollocalli participants are not only "A" students. We don't focus on a young person's grades in schools.
I strongly felt that the space for the program that I wanted, needed to be, had to be, a space where the students were not just participants, but leaders of the program. I envisioned a space where the students felt that it was their space. All of the youth are involved in the creation of art programs that are being offered. Yollocalli offers such a diverse curriculum. Classes in painting, murals, video production, radio, writing are just a few of the examples of the classes that are offered.
The National Museum of Mexican Art is located in a predominantly Mexican working class neighborhood. I felt that Yollocalli also had to be in the community. Yollo is in another location in the community, Research has demonstrated that there is a very positive impact when young people have cultural "anchors" in their respective communities. Museums were not exactly leaders in working with young people. It would make me laugh when I would hear that these museums would call their youth programs - outreach programs, yet the young people had to go to the museums for the programs. Please tell me how this is outreach. I also felt that quite honestly, these few youth art programs were created overwhelmingly not to please students, but to please funders, which to me was completely backwards. Our museum wants to be engaged with young people.
If one walks into our Yollocalli program, you walk into a beehive of activities. Young people moving throughout the facility, working on this project or that project. When I created the program, I would visit often, but I began to realize that my presence would change the dynamics of Yollocalli. Students would act like oh oh the Authority is here. From a frenzy of activity it would become super quiet like their counterparts that I had visited nationally or it was like walking into one of your teenage kids' rooms and they would say, "Dad I'm with my friends". Young people need to have spaces that are theirs. Yollo is their space.
The Yollo students created their slogan, Keeping things weird. This slogan illustrates both the sense of ownership that the students feel for Yollocalli and the need to change things in our society. Recently, the Museum, with the help of a local government official, identified a beautiful older building that had once been a fire station. Currently, the program is based in a local boys club that emphasizes only sports. The driving force behind the museum's need was unfortunately the killing of a young teenager who had been shot by a police officer. This tragedy galvanized everyone at the Museum and the Yollo young people, ........ that we had to do more, we had to do more.
Once the fire station had been secured at the cost of $1, the Museum went into a fundraising full speed ahead mode. The fire station is being completely renovated and is scheduled to open in the fall of this year. The Yollo youth were completely involved in all aspects of the design of the new space. This philosophy of having the youth be involved strategically in so many aspects of Yollocalli illustrates the point that young people don't just go to Yollocalli, they are Yollocalli.
A very important part of the Yollocalli program has been that classes are taught by artists. Numerous artists have taught in the program. Many Yollo students are now practicing artists and art teachers. The current Director of Yollocalli began as a Yollo participant and is now the Director of Yollo.
There have been many success stories for Yollo. It is the only youth-based after school art program that has won two national awards that were sponsored by the White House, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Our youth program created the first radio program in the nation, Homofrecuencia, that was focused on LGBTQ youth. They have created over a hundred murals. Austin, Los Angeles, San Cristobal de las Casas Chiapas, Mexico are a few of the locations where the young people working with muralists have created beautiful murals. Yollo youth have spoken at national conferences.
During one of our American Alliance of Museums Reaccreditation Reviews, one of the reviewers just really didn't understand how and why a museum was involved in a program like Yollo. "Museums don't do programs like this. Why are you doing this program. I just don't get it". I would chuckle and say too many museums are stuck in a model that is so limiting. Museums need to be a part of the community and not apart from the community.
We are living in really scary times. Museums need to come to the conclusion that either they are part of the solution or they are part of the problem. Museums can do so much more than their traditional role. Please understand that I'm not saying museums need to abandon the traditional roles that museums have. These are super important museum functions. I'm advocating that museums can do more.