The Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project is a partnership between Louis Vuitton and five of London’s leading art institutions: Hayward Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, South London Gallery, Tate Britain and Whitechapel Gallery. This three-year arts and education programme gives young Londoners from across the city unique access to the museum directors and curators, artists and collectors who shape the British contemporary art scene.

Five panels one from each institution, comprise young people aged 13-25 recruited from local borough schools and community youth groups. The panels will collectively visit exhibitions at the five partner institutions, where they will be given exclusive tours and unprecedented access to the inner workings of the art world. The panels will also be invited to creative sessions and site visits, led by high profile art world insiders, which will include artists, collectors and museum directors. Through additional focused workshops the young people will help create a project website to be launched in 2011. The website will be an evolving record of the project, providing an online community for debate, for showcasing work, for blogs and for reviews, and also enabling engagement with other art-interested young people who are not currently members of the project.

A selected group of young people from each panel chosen by the individual institutions attend an intensive, five-day annual Academy, the first of which took place in August 2010 at the Royal Academy Schools and Louis Vuitton New Bond Street. The Academy offers behind-the-scenes visits to galleries and conservation studios, and talks by curators and critics. At the end of each year, there is an opportunity for all the panel members and their families to celebrate their achievements.

For more information contact sarah@southlondongallery.org or join the Facebook group