From the 4th February 2022 until the 1st March 2022, we had our interim exhibition Interim in The Hold foyer. This was our first in person, public exhibition since starting the course, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and therefore, the process of creating and curating the exhibition was all new too. Overall however, I found the experience a very interesting and enjoyable one, and it has given me more confidence for when we curate our Degree Show, which is the next public exhibition that we will be doing.
The process of creating the exhibition started months in advance (before Christmas), when we got together and examined the space, and thought about the kind of work that we would want to show there, and how each of our individual works fitted together into one exhibition. This was a really interesting process to go through, as many people in the group wanted to curate the exhibition with one set theme, which we would all work towards. However, this didn’t fit in with my degree project at all, as my project is one continuous one, which leaves no time for creating new, different work, and I didn’t want to change my focus. Fortunately, due to other time constraints, this idea was pretty quickly abandoned, and we instead turned our minds to other elements, such as the name, social media presence, what we might want to exhibit and each of our roles for the exhibition.
I made a group onedrive, so that we were able to work on the project together, and have access to everything that everyone else did – as it makes working and organising so much easier when its from a shared workspace.
As you can see from the screenshot of the onedrive above, it gave us the space to work as a group – with each individual part of the project having its own space on the drive. This meant that when Melisa designed our brilliant logo, we were all able to see the different designs and have an input on how we felt it should look, as well as having access to the final design to create additional elements such as the Private View invite, or to make the GIF to share on Instagram.
Novotná, M. (2022) Interim Logo. [Digital Design]
Having this shared work environment aided our organisation and curation of the logistic elements of the exhibition, as well as Trish’s curation of the Virtual Exhibition, however, there were still many elements which required being there, in the space in person, in order to understand the relationship between the works and the works and the space. Although I was very flexible about the space my work would be displayed in (it didn’t have any particular requirements, and it didn’t need a lot of space, as it consisted of only two drawings), others weren’t and it was very interesting to take our works into the space before hanging them, in order to try them on the different board settings. The works were very influenced by the space itself – much more so than I expected, and the situation of some works in one location just felt wrong in some cases, but completely intuitive and right in others. This time wasn’t without its contentions though, and there were some tense moments of disagreement between some members of the group due to differing ideas of placement. But we got through them, and it has helped me to understand and appreciate the value of conversation and collaboration much more – as although things didn’t always go to plan or as we wanted, generally, when we spoke about it after a while and had time to calm down a little, things weren’t as bad as they seemed, and we were always able to reach a suitable outcome.
I was really happy with the placement of my work, and the relationship between it and the two works on either side of it – particularly the relationship my work had with Charlotte’s, as both works were quite minimalistic, and grounded in nature and the natural world – thus creating a perfect and very ‘natural’ progression between the two works. There was also a lovely relationship between mine and Trish’s works, which were opposite mine on the other side of the space; both were drawn in some way, and the general feeling of the two works seemed to work together – I think it was the reflective feeling of them – they both seemed quite calming and meditative – something which was also reflected in Charlotte’s work. Overall, the placements of all of the works were, I feel, really successful, and allowed each of them to be admired and examined to their full potential. They worked in harmony with the space and each other, and created a really successful exhibition.
