Aged 14–19 and into art, creativity, or making things happen?
Get involved behind the scenes at Dulwich Picture Gallery through our Youth Engagement Programme. Work on real creative projects, meet like-minded people, and help shape how we share our Collection with the world.
Volunteer Interpretation Programme
Our Volunteer Interpretation Programme (VIP for short!) is an opportunity for local young people aged 14-21 to get involved in the interpretation of the Gallery as part of our Unlocking Paintings Project, creating, investigating and developing new ways to share and explore the stories behind our incredible collection.
As a young interpretation volunteer young people gain experience in how we interpret our Collection whilst at the same time helping us tell new stories that resonate with them. They work with the Gallery to test and create different methods of interpretation, and recent projects have included delivering pop up tours for visitors, creating audio guide content and producing short animated films.
For more information, or to sign up, please contact Myles at m.symon@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.
Past projects
The Matrix 2024/2025
During the 2024/2025 season, members of the Youth Volunteer Interpretation Programme (VIP) worked with visual artist and photographer Lewis Greener to explore the Collection in relation to place, mythology and time. The group curated a selection of paintings they were most interested in learning more about and mapped their thoughts and interpretations of them against a map of South London, linking the images and interpretations to their own experience of their environment.
Over the following weeks they explored visual scores, field recordings, free writing, drawing and collaborative poetry. These connections became the basis of our animation - footage from these locations were animated by the group’s own drawings, artwork, notes and voices. All the words, illustrations and animations in the visual poem were created and voiced by members of the group.
Soulscapes 2023/2024
In 2024 the VIPs worked with poet and author Theresa Lola to create and perform a spoken word performance in response to the exhibition Soulscapes as well as the landscape paintings in our Collection. Watch the film below to hear one of their poems, voiced by Theresa Lola, and to see their words made visual by our youth facilitator Sarah.
Change 2022/2023
Working with artist Nikki Gardham in 2022/2023 our VIPs created and produced a digital animation called Change in response to the exhibition M.K. Ciurlionis: Between Worlds. You can watch their film below.