Reaching Non-Arts Youth: Strategic Audience Engagement for Kolektif

Kolektif is National Gallery Singapore’s flagship youth initiative for young adults aged 17 to 25, designed to empower youth voices and integrate contemporary social issues into the museum space. The key organizational challenge, however, is engaging and attracting more youths who are new to the visual arts to National Gallery Singapore, using youth-led approaches, formats and platforms that feel relevant and accessible to them.

Working alongside the Gallery’s Audience Development team, students will engage with young people between the ages of 19 to 25, enrolled in fashion, performing arts and creative disciplines adjacent to the visual arts as part of their research project. The aim is to understand how individuals involved in other art forms view the Gallery and visual arts in Singapore, and to propose ways in which other art forms can be put into meaningful conversation with the Gallery’s collections. These ways of engagement would ideally have low barriers of entry, catering to a more general youth demographic with little to no experience in visual arts.

The final deliverable is an actionable Youth Engagement Strategy Proposal & Activation Plan (around 10 pages) that will comprise three structured sections: 1) Audience Research & Perceptual Mapping: An empirical case study mapping youths aged 19–25 in adjacent creative disciplines, that might include fashion, performing arts, design and media, their digital habits, interest overlaps, and perceptual barriers regarding cultural institutions; 2) Kolektif Engagement Concept & Program Framework: A developed engagement strategy proposing accessible, multi-platform program formats, designed to put adjacent art forms into meaningful conversation with the Gallery's collection with low barriers of entry; 3) Integrated Campaign & Implementation Roadmap: A recommended outreach strategy, accompanied by programming plans, budget allocations, and operational guidelines for execution.