The Skirball’s Teen Advisory Committee (TAC) offers Los Angeles high school students a rare opportunity to put their learning, ideas, and lived experiences to work beyond the classroom. Through meaningful collaboration with Skirball staff and creative professionals, teens explore who they are, how their voices can shape cultural spaces, and what future pathways might be possible in museums, the arts, education, and nonprofit community work.
This year’s nine Teen Advisors reflected the breadth of young people the Skirball seeks to partner with, bringing together students in grades 10–12 from public, private, and homeschool settings, with Jewish and non-Jewish participants learning alongside one another. With three returning members helping carry forward the energy of the previous year and six new members adding fresh perspectives, the Teen Advisors engaged with exhibitions, artists, educators, curators, public programs, and museum staff, gaining insight into the many layers of work that make a cultural institution come alive.
Their work also offered a window into the Skirball’s future. As early contributors to the Museum Core Project, the Skirball’s long-term effort to reimagine its core exhibition experience, Teen Advisors helped staff and exhibition designers consider how the future core exhibition might invite students into complex stories with clarity, openness, and emotional resonance. Their perspectives are especially valuable at a time when young people are navigating difficult questions about identity, history, belonging, antisemitism, civic responsibility, and how to talk across differences. They brought immediacy to questions that are central to the future of the Skirball: What stories feel most urgent to young people today? How should a museum create space for complexity and disagreement? What makes an exhibition feel welcoming? What helps visitors connect the past to the present?
During a workshop with Museum Core Project Director Isabelle Lutterodt, teens were invited to think like curators and designers. Students considered how they would shape an exhibition for themselves, their friends, and future visitors. They were asked to think not only about what stories should be included, but how visitors would move through the experience: Where should the story begin? What ideas, images, and objects should guide guests from one section to the next? What should visitors see, contemplate, question, and carry with them after they leave?
Their responses revealed a generation ready for depth. Teens identified themes such as migration, Jewish Los Angeles, cultural pluralism, creative expression, Jewish values, democratic ideals, antisemitism, and the diversity of Jewish American experiences as especially meaningful. They also encouraged the Skirball to hold complexity with care, imagining an exhibition experience that reflects Jewish identity as dynamic, multifaceted, and shaped by memory, change, conversation, and lived experience.
Throughout the year, Teen Advisors shared reflections that revealed how seriously they understood their role as collaborators in the Skirball’s future. Teen Advisor Phoebe emphasized that the exhibition should help people find commonalities and connections, whether or not they identify as Jewish. Others spoke candidly about the importance of addressing topics that are already present in teen conversations, including immigration, antisemitism, activism, and disagreement. They did not ask for easy answers. Instead, they imagined a museum experience that gives visitors the tools to ask better questions.
As Teen Advisor Abby reflected, “You don’t always find answers in the exhibition, you find questions.”
That idea became a powerful throughline for the focus group that followed, led by the Skirball’s exhibition design partners. Teens emphasized that the new core exhibition should begin with a strong visual hook, include interactive and participatory elements, and remain accessible across age, language, learning style, and physical abilities. They imagined listening stations, opportunities for reflection, vibrant design, and moments that invite visitors to contribute their own perspectives. Most importantly, they hoped visitors would leave feeling inspired, hopeful, and connected to the past while thinking actively about the future.
For the teens, the reimagining of the Skirball’s core exhibition is not abstract. It is personal. Several Teen Advisors described growing up at the Skirball, seeing the institution as part of their childhood, identity, and creative formation. “I identify as Jewish, and the Skirball appealed to me because I have so many memories growing up there,” shared Teen Advisor Juju. “The fact that I could make more memories and have an impact on the Visions and Values exhibition as an adolescent felt so full circle to me.”
Others spoke about the Skirball as a welcoming space regardless of background. One Teen Advisor who does not identify as Jewish shared that the Skirball stood out because it felt “welcoming and community/family based,” a place centered on culture, history, and learning from other people’s experiences. Another described the Skirball’s unique ability to connect Jewish values to history and art through Los Angeles’s vibrant culture.
This sense of belonging was matched by a growing understanding of museum work itself. Teen Advisors described learning how exhibitions are developed, how programs are planned, how artists and curators collaborate, and how many people it takes to bring an idea to life. Several students shared that their experience on TAC opened their eyes to possible careers in museums, the arts, and nonprofit community work. One student reflected that the program helped them understand how to “read” exhibitions more closely, while another said the experience made them more confident sharing their thoughts with people from different parts of Los Angeles.
The Museum Core Project workshop was especially memorable because teens felt their ideas mattered. “The workshop that was the most impactful was the one where we designed the layout for a gallery,” shared Teen Advisor Ignatius. Teen Advisor Juju echoed that sense of agency: “I really enjoyed all the workshops we did with Visions and Values, but especially the one where we designed how the museum would look and function. I liked how creative we could be and how it felt like our decisions were actually being taken into account!”
That feeling is central to the purpose of the Teen Advisory Committee. TAC is a program that shapes young people as they help shape the Skirball, giving teens meaningful opportunities to develop their voices, test their ideas, and see themselves as contributors to cultural life. This year, the committee helped model what it looks like for teens to serve as advisors, collaborators, and cultural thinkers.
In the spirit of l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation, their ideas are helping the Skirball build on the strength of its past and carry its core stories forward with and for a new generation.
As the Skirball prepares to reimagine its core exhibition experience in the coming years, the Teen Advisory Committee offers a clear reminder: the future of the museum is not only something young people will inherit. It is something they can help build.