Exhibitions Student Curatorial Team members Kirsten Mae Wallace, Eilidh Wilson, Fiona Morag McKinnon, Alison Kay and Aylson Stewart share their reflections after collaborating on Hot Air: Cooper Gallery Project Space, 16-20 February, 2015. The exhibition was devised in response to Men Gather, in Speech... the concurrent film exhibition in Cooper Gallery, Jan-Feb, 2015.
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| Hot Air: Cooper Gallery Project Space, 2015 |
After putting a call out to the Cooper Gallery Student
Curatorial Team our small group of 5 was formed. Within a couple of meetings we had formed our
proposal. We worked well as a team and
our idea and concept was reached quickly.
The idea was to each view art from the 3 artists that would
feature in the Men Gather, in Speech... exhibition and to form a sentence that
encapsulates their work. In order to
make sure that we did not make the art that we wanted to purely because it
appealed to us we then passed our sentence on to the next person. We decided not to share our sentences with
the whole team because we thought that might affect the work we created. This was a great introduction to working
collaboratively because, although we were working as part of a team, we each
individually created our clips.
Projecting onto balloons abstracted and tied our work
together into one cohesive unit. Without
the balloons the project would not have worked so well. I think, for all of us, the balloons worked
far better than we had ever imagined.
The projection was visible through the balloons and this added an extra
dimension we had not expected. The
balloons, the layout and the viewers interaction with them was for me the
strongest part of this project.
“A visual exploration
of consequential effects caused by the loss of information or a misread signal,
in the breakdown of communication between human individuals; where wires have
been crossed.”
Sentence by Kirsten Wallace 4th Year Fine Art Student
“This exhibition was extremely challenging as it was a
collection of firsts for me. I am a
direct entry student in to level 2 Fine Art.
I have never; worked collaboratively, in film, made a proposal or worked
as part of the Student Curatorial Team before.
I lacked confidence and knowledge when it came to collecting
and creating the film clips that I was going to show in the exhibition. This was highlighted in the fact that I
failed to remove the sound in my clips.
If I had more time and experience I would have added audio to my
work. I will experiment with this
further in the future. My confidence lay
in the materials and installation of the exhibition. I was an active member in
bringing us together as a team and keeping the momentum going.
This project highlighted my strengths and weaknesses. It gave me a deeper understanding of what
goes into putting on an exhibition and what needs to be considered. Our attention mainly lay in the production of
the videos and the installation giving little time for marketing, budgeting and
organizing all the other parts that make up an exhibition. The dull stuff is equally as important as the
fun stuff.
We have talked about doing this exhibition again at a
different venue. With working knowledge
of how the clips and balloons work together it would give us a chance to better
optimize our marketing and organizing skills.
Watch this space; it might soon be filled with Hot Air.”
Ally Kay
“Fighting the noise, to be heard, only fills the silence
with more noise.”
Sentence by Ally Kay 2nd year Fine Art Student
“I saw this
opportunity as means to expand my studio practice and work within the Student
Curatorial Team. I am studying my masters with a focus on art practice but come
from a humanities background so being given quite a specific brief to work from
made the whole process much easier.
The sentence I was given really resonated with me and I
looked into the struggles of my own past as inspiration. I found the process of
making the video difficult and very cathartic, although was ultimately happy
with the outcome.
I do feel that due to other commitments towards installation
of the exhibition meant that I was not fully involved in the process and did
not help the dynamic in the team. It was a steep learning curve for all of us and
having gone through the experience I would definitely look more at the
logistics (marketing, budgets etc.) of everything and not get as absorbed by
the actual making of the piece.
All in all I greatly enjoyed the experience and would gladly
do it again soon, although with the new knowledge gained.”
Aylson Stewart
“Within unity of monologue, a picture of humanity”
Sentence by Aylson Stewart
“I found taking on this project as a new means of gathering
everything I have learned over the years and putting it into practice by being
part of an exhibition. As a 4th year student, I thought it was
important to challenge myself and see how the ideas that I am exploring in my
work for degree show can be taken into different contexts.
The sentence I was given set off a number of ideas, but
after having went to the opening talk with Rose English, I felt inspired to
recreate a work I had made in 2nd year and incorporate it into the
video.
Putting on the exhibition for me, was a great means of
realising timescale. Time for mistakes and technical issues should always be
factored into self-set deadlines. Also, realising the importance of PR, for me
creating the poster was a big learning curve for me, helping me to realise that
was looks good on a screen does not necessarily look good on paper. Overall we worked well as a group, despite
several setbacks for everyone and given the timeframe what we put together was
a successful.”
Eilidh Wilson
“Routine
is the ultimate form of distraction. Blind to the words that may break it.”
Sentence by Eilidh Wilson
“Throughout the past four years studying Art, Philosophy and
contemporary practices, my ideas and interests have grown and developed through
both critical and practical practice. It is this which was the foundation of my
enthusiasm to take part in this collaborative project. Responding to men Gather, In Speech…, we decided to
work in the medium of digital film. I feel that this experience has aided my
personal practice greatly, for I currently work in this medium.
This exhibition was a steep learning curve for me. It gave
me an insight into collaborative exhibitions, and of the problems that arise
during installing exhibitions. Our team worked very well together, and it was
an incredibly rewarding experience. Despite a few technical set-backs, the
installation was successful and received a very positive response at the
opening night. Overall, I feel that this project has provided a stepping-stone
for me to continue my engagement with curatorial practice.”
Fiona Morag McKinnon
“Interdisciplinary
exploration concerning the moments of human subjectivity which normally pass
unnoticed; a view from a different perspective.”
Sentence by Fiona Morag McKinnon
“I was interested in this opportunity to create art work as
a group in response to Men Gather, in
Speech… as the call out was centrally revolved around moving image, which
is currently the medium I am working with in my own practice. I have been
looking for the chance to work in a collaboration for a while so I saw this as
a perfect opportunity and decided to meet with other members of the Student
Curatorial Team who were beginning to put forward some very interesting ideas.
We had a very productive first meeting and it was apparent we were all on the
same wavelength.
I was happy with the sentence I received from Fiona shortly
after this meeting and found it a very helpful starting point in creating film
scenes - which I wanted to draw upon beauty in the every day. I enjoy video
editing and piecing scenes together but always struggle with gathering the film
footage, so having this brief to work on and respond to has proven to be a
useful way of working. Having set deadlines and others relying upon my input also
helps.
I enjoyed the process of installing the balloons and found
that we worked particularly well together during this install. The balloons
looked fantastic once the projection was up and running, and it hit various
angles which made for some interesting photographic documentation. I learned
which parts of my own film worked well and which scenes did not. Strong colours
and patterns worked very well on the balloons, as did text and parts of the
body. However bright, fast paced movements in my own film was difficult to make
out. We could distinguish connections throughout our films which we had not
intended and overall I thought the exhibition was visually, a great success.
We had a great turnout on our opening night and I had some
interesting conversations with both peers on my course and students I hadn’t
met before, who each had very positive feedback on our interactive projection.
At the very beginning of this process, I thought a week would be a good length
for this exhibition, but soon discovered how quickly the week went by and that
some people were unable to make it along in that time. I think we pulled off a
fantastic original idea and worked well together under a tight timeline with
some unforeseen obstacles. It has been a learning curve for me and is my first
official collaborative exhibition which I was proud to be a part of and hope it
will be the first of many. I am excited at the prospect of developing Hot Air
further and hope that we do decide to propose to exhibit again at different locations
in the future.”
Kirsten Mae Wallace
For more information about the Student Curatorial Team, an initiative developed by Exhibitions DJCAD, please see this webpage.
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