With one week to go until the Art Across The City launch event at the National Maritime Museum, Swansea, the most common question I’m asked is ‘how is it all going?’
I’m tempted to say ‘terrible, it’s all going wrong’, just to feed a little gossip mongering, but in reality, it’s all going very well, thank you very much for asking.
Week one of installation flew by, with Fiona Curran’s work going up without any hiccups. All the other work has arrived and is being prepped for install.
Of course, when presenting work in the public realm, the possibility for failure is always heightened, but that’s a positive rather than something to fear. I used to think managing multiple projects in the public realm was like juggling chainsaws, but I was wrong. It’s all about balancing out the workload; trust in your colleagues and liaising closely with the artists, and perhaps more importantly at this stage, keeping the public informed.
That’s not to say we’re not having those wide-awake 3am moments. That comes with the job. I woke in a sweat thinking I’d written pubic instead of public in all our promotional literature. That was a good one.
No one is stuck in China; no one has caused a power cut across South Wales (I’ve seen both happen) and, touch wood, no one will say pubic instead of public at the launch event.
