so i am curating a show in the screening room at the Bargate Monument Gallery in Southampton. It opened on saturday and will be there for 6 weeks. it comprises three consecutive 2 week periods, each showing a 30 – 40 minute sequence of art video, under the broad titles of beginning, middle and end.
it has been a HUGE learning experience for me, highlighting just how many aspects there are to such a process: practical, technical, political, personal, critical … the list goes on.
from a personal point of view, it has been really interesting being at the other end of the process. usually it is me putting my dvd in an envelope and posting it off. one of the things that i find difficult is the ones where you hear nothing at all. i realise now that it is massively time consuming to collate all the email addresses and send “no thank you”‘s, so i may be a little more forgiving. having said that, i did “no thank you” all the work that i did not use so i also know it to be possible to do so …..
the technicalities of moving image work – especially when collecting a group show – are a nightmare. everyone uses different formats, software, picture aspect ratio etc, and how to put them together has to be considered in advance in order to get the best outcome. i am trying to glean all i can from david at city-eye in an attempt to learn for future opportunities, and for ease of showing and formatting my own work. we are still trying to navigate the media player (instead of a dvd player) and the best way to achieve a 16:9 ratio for the flat screen, given that much work is in 4:3
then there is the marketing. this whole process was done very quickly and we failed to get the word out sufficiently before opening. it is a frustration but is all to do with who is available for such things and the shoe string upon which these things are put together. we do have beautiful A5 flyers thanks to dan at aspace. they are wending their way into the nooks and crannies inhabited by the southampton art community as i write.
so, our opening. we piggybacked on to elizabeth eamer’s opening at the gallery on sat sept 11th (a thought provoking and interesting collection of work, well worth a visit btw). my plan was to circulate and up the awareness of the screenings. several things became apparent 1. i am not a circulate kind of a person. i had no courage to go and talk to people. i regret how crap i was – i was too self conscious about my choices and my responsibility to the viewer – what if they all thought it was rubbish? could i justify my decisions critically? who exactly does sit for half an hour and watch an eclectic mix of video? 2. there was no signage in the gallery indicating that the screening room was showing an exhibition. if the door was closed, you could not tell. 3. the laminated info sheets about the films and the artists could not be read in the dark space so were of no use in there.
some of these issues i can address more easily than others …
now, i have to prepare for the change to middle, in which i have included some work about which i am enthusiastic, but my other watchers feel less excited by ….. time for a heated debate.
so much to think about, and so much upon which to improve. excellent. this is what i like.
i think
ps – do people comment or press “like” on vimeo? unravel has been watched 97 times without a single comment or like. wierd.
