Farewells

After the conclusion of this project I find myself clinging to this quote and hopefully it will ring true for the sake of my future exhibitions.

"Failure is success if we learn from it."

Malcolm Forbes

Thank you for taking an interest in my work. This will be my last post.

Self-Evaluation

                The content of my project I believe fulfilst he assessment criteria and responds to the brief in an effective manner , it establishes a connection to the immediate area and the surrounding environment, involving both the landscape and the locals using photographic forms and including materials from the scenes. The use of bottles was the main feature however this was dominated by the number of jars I had to use in order to light my work, prior to the exhibition this had occurred to me and in an attempt to remedy it I painted all the lids in the same colour to try and create a sense of replication; so that the differences weren’t so distinct. The use of glass and plastic was useful and beneficial as it did water proof the installation and protect the photographs when it started to rain on the day.

The work could have been improved if I had continued to shoot more photographs, specifically the portraits as I limited myself in the edit, I think that the addition of physical material in the containers did add another level of interest to the work and am happy that I persevered with that, however I would have liked to have had larger bottles and more in number so not to have needed to use the jars, as in the end I found them to be a distraction. The umbrellas that I put additional photographs on were a response to public comfort, to encourage viewing despite the rain; I think this was a good idea but could have been improved simply by making them more visible.

 Despite all of these faults I did like my finished product and hoped that they few that viewed it appreciated the display.

 

Due to the weather on the second day I had to moved my work inside.

 

 

 

Spectator Interaction

In comparison to the other pieces of work displayed in the exhibition I think mine was probably one of the least interactive, I did try to position the bottles so that the viewer would have to move around the space in order to see inside of them however due to the lack of visitors I didn’t really see whether it was a successful ploy.  I think that I could have developed the interactive aspect more and used more mediums to improve the level of interest in my work, I see now that I limited myself greatly during the developing and initial ideas stage.

Evaluation of Exhibition

                My finished installation was the product of my research and creative reaction to the space, it represented my own perceptions of the local environment, as well as relating to themes found The Mumbles Yacht Club which housed the final exhibition. With this in mind I believe that my work fulfils the criteria of the brief set by my University lecturers, however there are elements that in hindsight could have been improved and choices that could have been made differently which would have benefitted us.

                Despite the initial intrigue of the Mumbles Yacht Club I believe its location limited us greatly, we should of taken into greater account the influence of the weather on what is basically a shore side social club/bar, a vehicle is needed to reach which adds a cost to the exhibition I think people were unwilling to pay, the distance made viewing it a hassle. We had permission to use the entire building, but most of it was open plan meaning a lot of space which in the end did not work in our favour. This was because in order for the space to look like an exhibition and not an empty bar our works would have to be quite large, we did not consider this at the time and created works that were small and slotted into small spaces which were easily missed.

                I think that the aspect we failed to maximize on was the advertising, I thought our organisation was poor in this area and the posters weren’t utilized as they were only up a couple of days before the dates of the exhibition. This was costly as people would have needed time to organise viewing our exhibition due to its location.

                I think our exhibition could have been improved by adding and advertising other features to entice an audience into viewing, for example having a bar or providing souvenirs (such as small prints) so that the visit could become more of an event.

                On the whole I believe the main issue was that our work wasn’t daring enough, introducing pieces that the audience could interact with would have probably drawn more attention and made the installations more noticeable in the large space.

                If I were to organise another exhibition I would also choose a different time and dates to hold it on, the fact that the show was in the middle of the week and in the middle of the day excluded a lot of the public, as school and work hours conflict with the times set for the exhibition. I think we would have had more viewers if the exhibition had been on a weekend as well, especially as this is when people often visit the shore and enjoy spending time viewing art.

The Exhibition

The two days of the exhibition have now been and gone, after the first day of the exhibition I felt extremely disheartened, everyone displayed their work on time but throughout the entire day only ten people visited. The work itself seemed sparse in the large space we had acquired for the display and due to the poor weather the location of the exhibition was not helpful as it was by the shore and the building itself was quite isolated from the rest of the town.

 

The Fruits of Team Work

Once each member had displayed their pieces of art, I felt that all the themes worked very well together to create a representation of the surrounding area. Steph Langridge provided visually illustration of the changes in the weather with her installation, in my own work I displayed seascapes and depiction of locals who lived in the area. Hannah Johnson’s work even showed the less desirable aspects of mumbles through her take on the postcard conventions; similarly Malin Lindstrom used items left on the beach to depict a different perspective of the people and the environment. And last of all Kieran Hosking focused on what you could see from simply looking out of the window of our exhibition, all of these works make up an identity of the space and the people who live there.

 Steph Langridge

 

 



 

Hannah Johnson

 

 

 

Malin Lindstrom

 

 

Kieran Hosking

 

Risk Assessment

Finishing Touches

                For the exhibition I created a short leaflet that describes briefly the basis of each of the works, in my own paragraph I also explain the reason for the exhibition so that the viewer understands the project that little bit more.

                The design of the leaflet mimics that used for the poster advertising the exhibition, I felt continuing the theme would create a sense of professionalism.  Inside I also included an e-mail address for each member of the group so that a contact was available for the viewer encase they wished to ask questions after the dates of the exhibition, another feature in the leaflet was a title for each of the works, I believed it was important to establish a specific name for the pieces so they could be easily recognised, as well as being a tool to capture the interest of the viewer.  

 

 

Steph Langridge kindly volunteered to make name cards for each of us to place by our works, I thought this was a helpful feature to have.