Ali Haigh is preparing to spend two weeks at the Art Gallery of NSW after being selected for the Museums and Galleries NSW Mentorship Program.
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The public programs and education engagement officer at the Manning Regional Art Gallery is looking to learn, and then bring back and share.
"It's exciting for me to go there at this time because the Art Gallery of NSW is just about to open the 'Making Art Public' exhibition that will have education and public program experiences that I will have the opportunity to be involved with," she said.
"It helps us make these connections with the metropolitan galleries and bring that to regional spaces to support the community. The Art Gallery of NSW does lots of programs for access and all programs translate back to us beautifully as well."
Ali was appointed to her position at the gallery in March/April 2018 (she spends three days a week at the gallery and two days at the Manning Entertainment Centre) after many years working on a casual basis. Her role involves engagement with schools and public programs.
"Engaging with schools is something I'm most passionate about because sometimes I think schools have become a little isolated because of the workload of teachers. I think we have similar values and have resources at the gallery, and for us to be more available for them is a great thing. The problem is how we do that and make that really easy for them to access us."
Ali said MidCoast Council and the director of the gallery, Rachel Piercy, are very supportive of development opportunities and training, such as the mentorship.
"We need to be informed by what they're doing so we can bring that back to our community. I'm interested to see how it works at that level and see if some of the issues we have are the same as they have. How they connect with the teachers and how they support the schools."
The $3000 grant is for a Create NSW Fellowship, Mentorship and Volunteer Placement Program, administered by Museums and Galleries NSW on behalf of the NSW Government.
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