The award-winning Being a Boy project will be opening their first-ever exhibition event at the Palace Court Theatre in Bournemouth.
The Journey of Being a Boy exhibition began with a private view at a celebration event on Tuesday 28 January, which also saw the premiere screening of a new documentary, Being a Boy: Identity, following the experiences of young men on a BA (Hons) Fashion Communication workshop.
Launched in 2022, Being a Boy provides space for young men to creatively engage with the role of masculinity in their day-to-day lives. The social mobility project provides a number of fully funded places on selected workshops hosted by Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), which explore the themes of masculinity and identity.
The workshops provide a creative channel for participants to reflect on what being a young man means and their own lived experiences. After three years of the project, Being a Boy has grown from three creative workshops with 30 attendees in 2022, to seven workshops with 123 attendees in 2024.
To celebrate the growth of the project and all the young men that have made this project possible, AUB has organised The Journey of Being a Boy exhibition, which will feature artworks, poems, and performances from all the Being a Boy workshops from the last three years.
The Journey of Being a Boy exhibition is curated and designed by AUB's BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design students, narrating the journey the young men have been on throughout the workshops when creatively sharing what it means to them to be a boy.
Chloe Burrows, one of the students curating the exhibition, explains why she felt compelled to be involved with the project:
“I’m really passionate about social justice and levelling up inequalities. When I’m not at uni, I’m a cover supervisor – or supply teacher – at a local school. I teach all years and I can see first hand the challenges that some boys face if they’re from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“If they don’t have that support at home, or if they’re not from well-off families, their lives are about survival and maintaining perceived status quos, rather than their studies. They often don’t feel that uni is even an option for them. The Being a Boy project makes them feel like they’re worth something, that they’re worth investing in, and that can make the world of difference to their mental wellbeing and self-esteem.”
Research shows that male students who are eligible for free school meals typically achieve lower grades and are less likely to go to university than their peers. AUB and Ferndown Upper School set up the Dorset Boys’ Impact Hub, which has been working to change this.
Senior school leaders from across Dorset have also joined the Dorset Boys’ Impact Hub and are testing out ideas from the initiative, the findings from pilot projects in Ferndown Upper School, a major conference at AUB, and research from Ulster University.
The 2025 Being a Boy workshops will include photography, graphic design and make-up for media and performance.
Members of the public will be able to attend The Journey of Being a Boy exhibition open day on Saturday 1 February from 10.00 until 14.30. Following this, it'll be open for bookings until Wednesday 12 February.
