I have returned from installing ‘One Room Living’ with fellow artist Lois Williams and curator Martin Barlow.
The show, in the main exhibition hall Tbilisi State Art Academy, is our contribution to the international art event Artisterium IV in Tbilisi Georgia.
Thins didn’t start smoothly; planning and organising at a distance and with language issues involved, was bound to lead to some teething issues. I had requested 16 plinths to be built for me and given a month’s notice, but found a week before flying, that they hadn’t been built. And, despite having mentioned a number of times in correspondence that we intended to arrive on the 24 th October to begin installing on the 25th, we found that there was an exhibition in our space until the 28th. Also, although the event was slated to run from the 1st – 10th Nov, openings were staggered throughout the event so our exhibition would run from 3rd. This meant we had arrived way early and would be leaving before some of the other artists opened. On the plus side, this left time to organise the manufacture of the plinths; in the absence of the organiser’s promised technician, we managed to find a framer close to the Academy who would not only build and paint them on time, but do it at half the original quoted price. Result.
We had been asked by The British Council, our co-sponsors (with Wales Arts International) if we would run a workshop for Academy students. This we did on Friday the 28th. We had requested 10 students but about 25 turned up and seemed to enjoy themselves. At one time the Academy was one of only 3 in the USSR, serving the whole of the Caucusus, teaching methods today are very much a hangover from those days with the emphasis on formality, so the workshop was an opportunity for students to do something more playful and loose.
The space had been cleared for us by the time of the workshop, so installation began in earnest on Saturday morning.
To be continued…
