'Interventions'
Lewisham Arts House Exhibition
Nine fellow MFA students, including myself, exhibited at The Lewisham Art House in a group show during September. This was a really exciting opportunity and a great focus to work towards during the summer break. As with everything else that happened over the summer, my time was very limited and I found myself with only a few weeks until the exhibition and nothing made! I had wanted to experiment with flocked geometric shapes which was a continuation from the bronze I had started the previous term.
On a walk through Epping Forest I found a beautiful fallen branch which I brought home and began work on. The main struggle I had was finding the space to create work when we didn’t have access to the university art studios. I’m lucky enough to have a small garden which I worked from but it being outside I was limited to only being able to work when the rain and wind held off which did delay my progress and drying times. It was very difficult and messy to flock outside. I was then able to hire a car to deliver the piece to the exhibition.
Other than the logistics of actually creating my piece, the rest of the exhibition process when fairly smoothly. I would have liked more input into the design of the marketing materials but it became clear near the beginning that this wasn’t appropriate as the main organiser wanted complete control over this which was fine. I was able to print posters and help with promoting the show through my networks. We had a good turn out during the private-view and during the show which was encouraging and the feedback was positive.
After the exhibition finished I decided to return the piece to Epping Forest. This was partly to do with a lack of storage space but also because I wanted to see what the piece would look like back into it’s natural surroundings in comparison to the white space of a gallery. I was also wanted to document nature reclaiming the work over time. Unfortunately this wasn’t possible as when I return a month later the work had been pinched!
Professional Toolkit:
-
Time management
-
Negotiation of making space
-
Transport of artwork
-
Exhibition installation
-
Collaboration and team work
-
Marketing and promotion
-
Flyer design
-
Diplomacy and compromise
