In this write up, I have been completely honest about how I felt the process was going at each stage. I have also mentioned names in this write up, I felt that leaving names out detracted from my write up and the feelings about the process, so this is a warning for anyone reading that names are mentioned!
Initial meeting:
I'm part of the curatorial team for both the test exhibition happening soon, and I assume the end of year exhibition we have to organise ourselves. I really wanted to be a part of the team as it's something I'm interested in gaining more knowledge of, not just as a possibility for the future, but it may aid my placement information and research.
Sadly, during the initial meeting we approached it the wrong way, as at the beginning of the meeting we were asked who wanted to do it, so half of the group volunteered to be on the curatorial team. I feel that's way too many people to curate an exhibition properly, but others have said it'd be unfair to say that people can't be on the team. I partly agree with this, but I have a feeling communication may be a big issue now because there are so many people. Too many cooks spoil the broth, as the saying goes. I think that 5-6 people would be plenty, half of the whole group seems rather excessive to me. However I feel people may drop out if they feel it isn't for them. We also agreed to everyone handing in a proposal form by the end of thursday, ready for the curatorial team to review on friday. Hopefully everyone will hand one in, but as there are people missing from this initial meeting, I don't expect we will have them all.
After Curators meeting:
The curation went surprisingly well, and we had everyone in the gallery with a space much quicker than I first expected. Sadly only five of us were there for the beginning of the meeting (Jess, Laura, Kim, Zoe and myself), with our note taker Vicky turning up half an hour late; I wasn't too impressed as she still found time to go and get a coffee from Costa. We had a few proposal forms missing, (Kay, Vicky Stokes, Shannon) although Jess had a vague idea of what Kay wanted, and Vicky was at the meeting so she could tell us verbally. Still, It's not a good sign when even people on the curatorial team can't meet the deadline or even hand in a form! This meant we had to place these people wherever we could as we prioritized the people who had handed one in. Even with the forms, I felt people were too general and hadn't given us a good idea of what there work actually will look like, but in the end we managed to get everyone into a space. The spaces that were left, we allocated to the people with proposal forms absent.
I still feel that the team is too large, which both Zoe and myself brought up at the beginning of the meeting, but apparently it's unfair and too harsh to tell people they can't be on the team. While I agree with this, if people aren't pulling their weight or benefiting the curation of the exhibition, I don't think there is any point in them being a part of the team. It was quite difficult working out where to place people, so we sorted all of the forms into piles of wall based work, installation etc. and began with people who needed certain spaces. Vicky Jones was one example, as she wants to stack chairs for her work there was no other space she could use other than her first choice, as it would pose health and safety risks. I was slightly annoyed that when Vicky turned up late, we had already assigned half of the gallery spaces, and she proceeded to try and change everything we had done while she wasn't there. We firmly but politely told her that we'd already made those decisions and that we'd moved on from them, which she accepted so we could continue allocating the spaces. Overall the placement of the installation works was the most difficult, as there were several of them and not much space in the gallery areas. Luckily with some negotiations between Kim and myself we managed to fit our work, and Precious' into the largest space in the gallery.
Discussing the proposed floor plan for the test exhibition:
Everyone was happy about the places given, apart from Kim. Despite being at the curatorial meeting and being happy with everything then, she has decided she is unhappy now as Precious' name is too close to hers on the sheet.Before the meeting I explained to her several times that it's just the font being too large, and doesn't depict how and where the work will be, but she didn't listen and also brought it up in the meeting. What I had explained to her was also said again by several other people, but she was convinced that Precious' work would block hers. We told her to wait until the work is installed and see then, as we know it's not an issue once it's all in place. Still unhappy and unconvinced, she did let the matter drop, however. What was slightly worrying was the fact that the same people who failed to hand in forms weren't at this meeting again, such as Shannon. We are posting everything both onto the noticeboard and the facebook group, so there really isn't an excuse for not knowing what's going on as everyone should be in anyway.
Installation of the work:
The install process was slow, andI was surprised that most of the gallery was empty still on friday morning, however I realised that people had been working on and creating the work for most of the week, including myself (although I had to work on mine directly in the space). Most of the installation happened in the morning, we helped each other when needed and for the most part it went smoothly. However by friday afternoon I was concerned that a few people's spaces were still empty. These were the same people who failed to provide proposal forms or turned up late to meetings, if at all (Angela, Kay, Shannon). Zoe left a reminder on the facebook group earlier in the day, and when they still didn't appear I left a more stern comment on the group, reminding people that they not only let themselves down if they fail to install, but also impact the people sharing their gallery space. I decided to leave the more stern comment as the team has been very nice about lack of forms or attendance so far, and that we need to start gearing up better. Luckily towards the end of the day everyone was in either installing their work, or going home with their work in the gallery.
Once I started to look around the gallery spaces, I noticed that in some areas the work didn't fit together at all. This is a curatorial issue that needs to be resolved in the real exhibition, and luckily it isn't so much of an issue for this text exhibition, however I'm still annoyed that this has happened. I feel part of it was because the curatorial team wasn't provided with enough details and information about some people's work, so we had to place them somewhere and guess quite a lot on what the work will actually look like. For example, in Nick's proposal he said that his chairs would be a floor-based installation. I understand that ideas change but he then chose a small, tall plinth to place them onto, which could have obstructed other work on the wall. It also meant that the large floorspace in the middle gallery is now wasted, which could have been better used now by one of the installation pieces. If he had told us about the changes, it couldn't been curated better however we were unaware of this. Luckily, Sarah and Shannon let me know about their plans about swapping spaces, and Sarah had already negotiated this with Percy so it was fine to go ahead. Even so, Shannon's photography work didn't do anything in the space with Nick's installation, or Phil's work opposite, or really work with Laura's paintings to a degree (they are both portrait based work though so it also does to a degree). If we had been given more details on how all of the work would actually look, I feel we could have made better decisions about placement of work in the curatorial meeting. In addition, some people simply didn't deliver the work they stated, such as Vicky Stokes. She stated she would have three plinths, mimicking a museum display style with collections under plastic display boxes. She only ended up with one, it wasn't even varnished so she did that in the space and got varnish all over the gallery floor, in addition to the fumes it gave off which interrupted some people and prevented them from installing their work. There is also no collection on the plinth, just one toy fox. I feel that the wall behind her work is now being wasted, as if we had known she was only using one plinth we could have negotiated with Nick to make better use of the floorspace, and have a wall based piece on that wall.
Discussing this with Zoe from level 6, who also is interested in curation, she made it clear to me that we need to start being more ruthless and 'harsh' with how we curate and get everyone to be involved. She also agreed with me on the curation team being too big, and suggested that if people don't start pulling their weight on the team, that we can say they can't be on it any longer - it's our exhibition at stake and we're graded on it. I completely agree with this, as I felt I couldn't do anything or chase anyone up in fear of being dubbed harsh or being unfair. I'm unhappy that the gallery space isn't working, and I do want to step up and start curating the exhibition properly next time. I hope that my confidence doesn't get in the way, as I want to try and be more harsh when it comes to things like missing forms, or people not pulling their weight. It may even boost my confidence, and I don't want to have to walk on eggshells trying to please everyone when an exhibition is being curated - compromises will be needed by everyone, and I felt some people were unwilling to do this for the test exhibition, or felt they were compromising when they actually weren't. I want to make sure it is also done fairly, too, as I feel that some people were more vocal or stubborn in their issues, and therefore made other people make unnecessary sacrifices in their work just to accommodate their qualms.
To summarize, I feel that the process has gone a whole lot better than I first expected, with only one or two people having issues. I really enjoyed the process of curating the work, although sadly this was handicapped by the fact that people didn't provide us with the information we needed. I felt that we were also too nice and gentle about everything, and that people didn't even realise they had let us down or caused us to have to work harder than it should've been necessary. Next time, especially since it'll be for the real exhibition, I think the team needs to be cut down to make it work better, as there is too many people not contributing to the team and is affecting the teams ability to work properly. We also need to be more harsh when it comes to information we need, deadlines for forms or installations, and need to start chasing up people if they fail to pull their weight fairly and contribute to the whole group effort, and make sure all negotiations are fair for everyone involved.
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