I started to wear my winter coat again this week and reaching into the depths of zipped up, rarely used pockets, I found paraphernalia on SUPERMARKET. It was SUPERMARKET that brought us where we are today – manically hovering between two exhibitions and trying to coordinate 20 + artists, 6 of which live and work overseas.
I would have liked to have done SUPERMARKET again next year, but we achieved what we set out to do – to take our work to Stockholm, communicate ideas with artists over there, and bring the experience back to the UK, to then share with the public.
So, the exhibition is reaching its final days……in Liverpool that is. ( the next stage is already in the pipeline)…… and we have had a sudden flurry of visitors. We are going to have a closing event as we’ve found that these usually work well in bringing in visitors that didn’t get round to , or simply forgot to, see the exhibition beforehand. http://www.independentsbiennial.org/2012/10/10/inhospitable-closing-event-at-the-bridewell/
It could have been the publicity I sent out that reminded these recent visitors that we are here – or it could have that they were coming anyway. Whatever reason, It was good that they came.
Two more days of either coordinating invigilators, or having to invigilate myself.
Oh to go back to exhibiting in a gallery space that does all this for you : /
http://www.supermarketartfair.com/
( scroll down to exhibition stands, and we are there – SCIBase )
There was an open newspaper in the office, dated sometime in September. In it was an article about proposed changes of business rates to several art related venues in Liverpool. The fact that it hadn’t been thrown away, highlighted the uneasiness the article had provoked.
One venue – Mello Mello, had recently learned it is to lose 80% discretionary business rates relief that was provided by the council, leaving it facing an annual bill of £30,000.
The article goes on to say that many other arts based organisations that will still receive rate relief will have to demonstrate their work with deprived communities.
The only other venue that was mentioned was Static Gallery – who recently held an auction to raise funds, but both The Bridewell and Royal Standard were mentioned when chatting to other artists at our PV. Minutes of recent meetings were left pinned on the notice board. Not really meant for the prying eyes of visitors such as myself, but still no secret was being made of the fact that they need to start some cash making ideas themselves.
We lost several arts venues in Liverpool last year, so it is quite worrying that another cull is scheduled. I hope it doesn’t happen. The Bridewell in particular have been very hospitable to us ( following the Biennial theme to the letter!)
What brings you to Liverpool? asks the man in the cafe to the two students that have been staying with me. ‘We’re here to get some work experience with the Biennial’. ‘What’s that?’ asks the man. ….and that, so it seems, is the general opinion of the average person on the street here.
I wonder if they are bored with it all? There’s always exhibitions popping up in Liverpool, so has the Biennial really made any difference?
I took the two students over to Liverpool this morning and received a text on route, from the next two who are staying over. I must say, this ‘Collaborative Arts Society’ at Leeds Uni certainly has some enthusiastic members – I just wish some of it would rub off here!
So students #1 stayed at the Albert Dock unit while students #2 did a tour of the Biennial, then swapped over early afternoon. While I did the long and lonely trek up to the Bridewell.
How many visitors did you get today? asked Ed, one of the gallery /studio directors. Three I replied. Wow – that’s fantastic! He enthused. The last exhibition had days of no visitors at all.
ho hum
It was only when I ‘lost’ my phone that realised how much time I wasted checking emails, tweeting and scrolling through facebook. Of course, if I had a choice, I’d rather have my phone back than trying to figure out how to do even basic functions on this thing that I’ve borrowed.
So last night, I dropped my phone…….again. But this time, the screen cracked and the rest just died. This being the one week that I have all these students from Leeds contacting me to pick them up from the station and show them where our exhibitions are in Liverpool.
A frantic search through the house to try find one of my old cast offs was unsuccessful, so I had to try to see if I could borrow another to get me through this week. My brother came through for me – not just with the lend of a blow up mattress, but, with being a bit of a technophobe, full use of his dinky little Samsung – which he ‘hardly used’.
I’d barely swapped over the Sim card when the phone rang…..Sophie, student #1 was at Lime St station asking where they should go. It was barely 10am! What’s with students these days? Are they all up at the crack of dawn?
Cutting a very long story short……….I got to Liverpool, picked them up from Tate – where I thought it would be better they spend their time rather than waiting at a cold station. Took them to Unit 8 on Albert Dock and with very little prompting, they set up the monitors and DVDs, so everything was ready to go.
Ran round getting them some maps and pointed out Biennial ‘Hotspots’, before I had to shoot back home to get some food in and cram as much junk into cupboards as possible, to make my home/ workspace/ dog kennel, habitable.
In the meantime………miles away…….Julie Dodd sat invigilating at the Bridewell again……….
Invigilation is always a problem, no matter how organised you think you are. The rota we set up for the two exhibitions was pretty tight anyway, so when one person told us she couldn’t do her day, there was very little we could do about it. I started asking around, but realistically, it was too short notice and with it being a week day anyway, the likelihood of a hoard of people going up to visit us at the Bridewell was very slim.
I changed the info on the website and kept tweeting all day that we were going to stay closed, hoping that all would be OK. The project is huge and in comparison this is only a very small blip – not worth losing sleep over.
The good news is that we now have at least ten Leeds Met students that are going to help with Invigilating over the next week. This though, meant that I have had to convert my work room at home to a bedroom for two to stay at a time. It’s a tight squeeze and I seem to have spent most of last night and half of this morning, shifting stuff around to make a decent space.
I spent the afternoon invigilating at Bridewell , taking over from Julie Dodd, who did the first few hours. Even though the exhibition had been on for 3 days now, this was the first time I’d been able to really look at each of the works without any distractions.
We only had a handful of visitors for the day, which was such a shame, but I was grateful for a few hours of just sitting. No organising, no thinking about work and most importantly no stress.
