Design your own art gallery
Design your own art gallery
Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at places like the Royal Academy? Who decides which exhibitions go on show? What's an Academician? Learn more about the RA's history and design your own art gallery.
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Design your own art gallery
Your challenge is to design your very own art gallery or museum. Imagine that you’re in charge of making all the decisions, including what it looks like, who it’s for, what it does and why.
Not sure where to start? Think about a museum or gallery that you’ve visited. How did you feel when you walked in? What do you remember about the experience? What impressions did it make on you and why?
Don’t worry if you’ve never been to a museum or gallery before, you can read a short history of the RA on this page. You’ll also learn what an academy is, who the Royal Academicians are, about our art school, and much more.
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Your gallery
When thinking about your gallery, answer these questions:
- What is it called and why?
- What are its beliefs and principles?
- Who makes the decisions and why have you chosen them?
- Who do you want to come and how will you encourage them to visit?
- What kinds of artworks and objects does it collect and why?
- What does the collection say about the institution?
- Does it have exhibitions, events, a café, a crèche?
- What makes audiences want to come and spend time there?
- What does it look like? Consider the outside as well as the inside. Does it have grand stairs or can you walk in from the pavement?
- Where is it? It could be in the centre of a city, in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, perched on top of a mountain with two day’s walk to reach it, or somewhere in between.
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Appearance
The RA, much like many of the big museums and galleries in the UK, is a grand building. It has traditional architecture including statues, columns, flags, high ceilings and big open spaces with sweeping staircases.
If you didn’t know anything about the RA or art, how do you think you would feel entering a building like this?
When designing your institution, think about the architectural features you’d use to ensure that visitors feel welcome when they arrive.
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Governance
This is a painting of the Royal Academicians meeting in 1795 to judge which works by the RA Schools students should be awarded medals.
What do you notice about the people in this image? Do you think they are a fair representation of all artists at that time?
What are the important things to consider when you are choosing a governing body do you think? Think about what is important to you in this context. What decisions will your governing body be making and who for?
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Audiences
Take some time to consider who you want your institution to be for. Who do you want to welcome onsite and why have you chosen those audience groups?
How will you encourage your audiences to use the spaces within your institution? Will there be places to sit and chat, drink, eat, make a mess, ask questions, make noise, debate?
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Experience
Now you have identified your audiences, think about how you’d like them to encounter the art and spaces that you’re creating for them. How do you want them to experience the art and objects that you are presenting to them?
Think about experiences that you’ve had in the past—do you like to look at sculptures on plinths in big rooms or outside in the fresh air? Is it important to see all the way around an artwork? Do you want your institution to be a quiet space for reflection or do you want people to feel free to make noise?
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Exhibitions
As well as having a permanent collection, most museums and galleries also have an exhibition programme. This is an opportunity to focus on one specific theme in art history, or to pay tribute to an individual artist’s body of work.
Now that you have your own institution, do you think that you will have an exhibition programme? If so, what kinds of exhibitions do you think you will have? Are there any artists or periods of art history that you already know you want to focus on? How do you imagine the works in the exhibitions will be displayed?
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Share your work
You can take as long as you like on this challenge, and you can respond in whatever way you would like to!
Perhaps you want to build a physical model or render something digitally to show what your building will look like. Maybe you would prefer to write a manifesto that details what your gallery’s founding principles are or who the gallery is for. You could curate the first exhibition to take place or design a floorplan for the gallery spaces. Or even create the menu for the cafe! The wonderful thing about museums and galleries is that there’s so many different ways to get involved.
We would love to see what you’ve created! If you want to, you can share your responses with us by email
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Background
The RA's history
In 1768 a group of artists and architects founded the Royal Academy of Arts. They wanted to create an educational institution run by artists, for artists. The Academy was to be a venue for public exhibitions and lectures as well as an art school. This group of 36 became the first Royal Academicians. To this day, artists and architects elected as Academicians govern the Academy.
Since its foundation, the RA has moved at least five times and has had 27 different Presidents, but our founding principles have stayed the same.
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Many things in one
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We're an academy
We have a lot in common with other museums and galleries, but our role is a bit broader.
Like other institutions we promote the appreciation and understanding of art, but we also have a special focus on its practice.
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We're led by artists
As our founders intended, we’re led by many of the most recognisable names in contemporary art and architecture. Each Royal Academician must be a practising artist, elected by their peers in recognition of their work. They specialise in one of four categories: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Printmaking. Academicians take many different approaches to art, but they share a deep commitment to art and they believe in the valuable contribution of artists.
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We're a school, too
We’re home to Britain’s longest established art school, the RA Schools. Our three-year postgraduate course is one of the most competitive in the country and is free to attend. The average age of the students is around 27 and they are recruited from all over the world. Each student has a unique studio practice and creative journey with us and is selected based on their individual potential to develop and extend their artistic ambitions with us in ways that are unexpected, unpredictable and surprising.
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We host exhibitions year round
The Academy has always been a place for lively discussions about art, a centre for debate, as well as a place to see art from across the globe. One of our founding principles was to hold an annual exhibition that anyone could enter and anyone could visit. Today it’s called the Summer Exhibition and it has taken place every year since 1769. We’ve held exhibitions with topics ranging from the Italian Renaissance to Abstract Expressionism. We’ve also held solo shows featuring Royal Academicians including David Hockney, Ai WeiWei, and Marina Abramovic.
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We have a unique collection
Most museums and galleries have a permanent collection made up of objects and artworks chosen by curators and keepers. The RA’s collection is unique because the core of the collection is made up of what are called ‘Diploma Works’—all of the Royal Academicians donate one of their artworks to our Collection when elected, creating a treasure trove of British art. This also means that in a lot of ways, the RA’s Collection hasn’t been shaped by Curators, but by the artists themselves, which is unusual. It tells the story of British Art History in a way that no other collection really does. You can see all of the objects and artworks in our collection in our online collections gallery.
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