Sensing Place
Hold Structures and Touch Structures
Collaboration, developing a pitch, developing a theme, curating, art handling, installing, marketing and promotion
I developed a whole new set of work for this exhibition which is discussed in more detail in the arc (here).
The professional development from the exhibition itself is discussed in more detail below.
Sensing Place at Cloisters, Inner Temple
An exhibition with Morna Hinton and Jane Pickersgill
The exhibition at Cloisters differed from the other exhibitions I have participated in, in that with just three of us in the exhibition we got the chance to work on all aspects of putting on an exhibition rather than just one or two each.
Theme
The theme we chose (Sensing Place) reflected all our practices but I also selected one of Jane’s pieces as an inspiration for how I might develop work for the show. The fact is that we do mostly live an urban life so in my own practice the strand that deals with reaching out to touch can meaningfully incorporate an element of the city.
Pitch
Because we were not hiring a space but had to be accepted for the space, we first needed to meet the art committee at Cloisters and impress them with our professionalism. For this I pulled together a mini portfolio mixing together new work in development with our theme in mind with previous work to demonstrate my professional approach to realisation.
Development
All the work had to be framed and I decided to use the fact of the work being framed as part of the work. This was based on my thinking around the grasp, the hold and the touch. My discussion of the actual works themselves is in Chapter 2 of the Arc ‘The Desire of Touch’ (here)
Jane Pickersgill: Expanding City
Touch Structure 3
Curation
A month before installation we had a meeting at Cloisters and looked carefully at each space so we would know how much and what size of work would go into each one. In addition I took photos of each space to refer to again. We had a pre-meeting a week before installation where we looked at the work and could start to think about where it would go. Due to the forward planning, curating on the day only took a few iterations.
Installing
As the exhibition was installed in offices we needed a method of installing where there would be no holes in walls, that is, we would be hanging work from a dado rail. The method we chose was the STAS hanging system, which I duly researched. Having cleared my queries by phone with the suppliers, I did all the calculations as to what to order, poring over weights and potential weights of different materials. I’m sure I overdid it to be on the safe side but no learning is wasted.
As we hadn’t used the STAS system before there were a few teething problems with the first few pictures to go up but we soon developed the little tricks necessary to get the heights and balance to work correctly. I would definitely use this system again.
Promotion
As I had the most experience with Photoshop I developed the exhibition image using a piece from each of us that worked together then transferred to InDesign to make the actual poster/flyer and add the text.
The exhibition was in meeting rooms at a Barristers Chambers so the works could only be viewed by appointment outside our two evening events consequently this is where our promotion was focussed. I used the flyer as an invitation card for sharing with everyone on my mailing list and also for promotion on social media.
Finding the evening events would require navigating the Temple area so for both evening events we put together a package including a map and instructions so people could find it. I collated the mailing list and updated the instructions for the second event. I also put up posters and instructions with maps on various doors as there were a number of wrong ways in as well as the right one so we had to anticipate error.