The January Show!
what an insane experience this has been! working in the committee for the first ever 100% student led exhibition at the SOA was something i really didn’t think i would be doing during my second year at Aber. although it was a lot of work going inn to it, this experience really gave me an insight into what is needed for an exhibition to run smoothly.
there were some obvious faults we needed to work more on like mapping the building to make it easier to navigate, maybe have some clearer descriptions of the work and maybe a tour or two so people can get a one on one guaranteed with the artists of the works. one major fault i think was that we took on too many artworks, and didn’t get the information needed from them inn time. this is something that should have been taken care of a lot earlier. i also think we should have worked more as a team during the day before, during and after the exhibition.
some positives is that we managed to get it all up in time, got huge attendance and the time scheduled worked perfectly for how long the people were staying. i also felt i got a lot closer with the committee members, some of which i hadn’t spoken to much prior, which is always a happy bonus. especially now that we are all in the same IP group. im also happy that the artist that did exhibit were happy with their placement and managed to get their work seen. i was really scared of including works from TFTS and Creative Writing as i didn’t know much about how film and writing works, so i didn’t want to miss represent anyones work. thankfully as creatives, we worked together and managed to represent everything as closely to how the artists wanted their work seen as possible.
i would gladly do this again with maybe a bigger team and some better planning ahead of the holidays as both me and Pola were abroad for the majority of it as well as all the assignments we all had to work on.
First Class: meeting the new group!
for our first IP class we thought about how our mind, and body were at that exact moment. do we have any associations with the date of the class (Feb. 2nd.) ? personally i was feeling exited for a new beginning, calm and relaxed with no associations of the date.
we then looked at statistics on different groups that visit museums and the challenges we might face when advertising to groups that usually dont go to museums or are picky about what art they like to look at. we randomly picked a description and had to create a character based on the traits of the groups we picked.
i picked the traditional culture venturer. this person has high engagement when it comes to museums.
my character was called Linda Burton and was 50 years of age with no children and a husband aged 51. she is Caucasian, upper class and healthy. her hobbies included painting, hanging out with friends and family and visiting cultural spaces like the opera and museums.
some of the issues museums might face when trying to advertise to this groups is that they struggle to understand new types of art. this might mean that they appreciate an audio guide or a written description about the work itself. although this group is fairly intelligent, they still like to have something to help them understand the work from the artists perspective. another issue we might face is that they like to go to exhibitions that have been well ranked by well known art critiques or just classified as quality art. as we are advertising for the TAKEOVER, this might be a slightly more tricky factor to adapt to.
after this we looked at artwork through the eyes of the characters we had made, something i really enjoyed cause it started making me see the art world through a different lens.
overall this class was really helpful. i wasn’t expecting to learn about museum statistics in IP, but this is some great info to keep for the future, and maybe come back to as this statistic may change.
group tutorial:
during the group tutorial we talked about our feedback from last semesters work. we talked 2 and 2 until all of us had talked about the same points with everyone. this meant a lot of repetition of my biggest lows and hight during the semester. it actually became a lot easier talking about the negatives after having talked to a few people, making me realise how often i had something related to time management as a problem. from spellchecking, grammar and cleaning.
Some thoughts on last semester:
last semester was full of ups and downs, but most often downs due to my mental state. the classes, teaching and my project overall was incredible! i think i just pushed myself too much when my entire being was falling apart. in some ways im glad i did as i got a great installation out of it, but in others it really hit me during the Christmas break, leading to me getting ill for most of the holidays.
i am really glad of what i managed to achieve, even when i was at such a low point. this is something i really need to continue with as i still remember something miranda had told me during one of the tutorials, “time doesnt wait for anyone”. and i think this is really true. i am especially thinking about it now that the theme is time, something that has made me realised how quickly time is going by.
i also need to get better at time management as this is an issue that kept my level of professionalism down. i didnt have enough time to clean properly after myself and i didnt have the room cleaned enough for the final images. i also didnt get as much recording as i would have liked cause i just didnt find the time.
Goals for this semester:
i want to be more social. last year i ended up isolating myself due to my mental health, leading to me feeling even worse. i need to set time to meet friend and find a good balance between uni, personal time and socialising, cause at the moment i have struggled to balance my time well.
so my first goal will be TIME MANAGEMENT!
not just for my own sanity, but also in order to have time to get everything done that needs to be done (like fully clearing the project room after im done using it). i also need to plan my time better as i could have used more help hanging the objects to more efficiently get everything set up when working out the display and hight of everything for the last project.
that leads me to the next goal. be more open to getting help if needed. last semester i could have gotten more people to help hang things, but i didnt. i also could have gotten help editing the audio as i have a DJ in the flat, but i didnt. this is something i need to work on. i like to think i am very independent, but at times this ends up stopping me from asking for some help with simpler things like hanging the objects or help taking it down. this goal goes very well with the first goal, so i thought this is an easy way for me to work on two goals at once.
another goal for this semester might be to gain confidence in my own work. this is cause i find myself struggling to talk about my work in a confident way, making me seem unsure about what im talking about, when in reality i really enjoy the project. i might work on this by talking to more people about my work, exhibit more, put more work out there and explain my thought proses and maybe even work on my general confidence.
Personal project:
for this semester we have the theme of time! personally i have a very bad relationship with time as you may see from the time management goal i keep adding to my notebooks. time flies too fast and i often find myself not being able to keep up. one might say i am falling behind in life?
for this semesters project i have been brainstoming quite a bit, but not come up with anything so far. i know i need to start doing something, but im finding it difficult to relate to time when ive spent most of my life trying to ignore the fact that time is slowly chipping away at my life. maybe i shouls make something around this? but how?
lots of reflection, a good account of the classes, honest, open, a good start..lovely photos fo the show