Presentation Ideas

(Click to Enlarge)

Rough plan of our presentation.

Funding Research....

This afternoon, Elena and I decided to research Funding as it is the last big thing that we have left on our 'To do' list.

Elena decided to research into The Arts Council and I decided to research The Heritage Lottery Fund.
Here is what I found:

 I feel that our idea actually matches quite a few of these points such as:

• Peoples memories and experiences: Our whole art piece is designed to incorporate people and their experiences in Museums. Also, we will be encouraging members of the public to remember their first experiences and tap into their memories of the first time that they walked through a door into a Museum/Gallery. 
• Histories of people and the communities: By bringing in the community to take part in this Public Art piece, we are offering the opportunity for the public to share and show their experiences. I feel that our piece is a very communal piece that should include every single Museum visitor. 
• Languages and Dialects: Although Art is a very universal thing, I understand that it's not everybody's cup of tea. In my mind, I would like to be able to offer the opportunity for people to articulate through words as well as art what their experiences have been in Museums and Art Galleries. Also, not everybody shares the same language, thoughts, words etc. I feel that by opening up the way in which people can respond to this art piece, it will appeal to every visitor no matter where they come from, what their experience is, how they communicate etc.
• Historic buildings and streets: People may draw the Museums and Galleries that they have visited?
• Collections of objects, books or documents in museums, libraries or archives: Not every person is going to have visited the same Museum and also, no two Museums are the same. Not everyone is going to have been the Science Museum as not everybody is going to have visited the Smithsonian or the Louvre. Hopefully we will get a range of drawings, words, experiences etc which will make our piece varied and successful.

I then went on to research which programme we, as a group, would be eligible for. Here is what I found:

There are two programmes that we would be eligible to apply for:

1. Your Heritage (£3,000 - £50,000)
2. Young Roots (£3,000 - £25,000)

After reading about both the Arts Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund, I think (after looking at the various bullet points that we would have to match), the Heritage Lottery Fund would be our more successful application if we were to apply. 

Arts Council Funding Research

We decided to research two funding companies, The Heritage Lottery Fund and The Arts Council. We split the research two ways, and it was my job to research The Arts Council.

I managed to download a PDF explaining the process of submitting an application for a grant which was very helpful as it reduced the process down to 5 steps.

1) Read the PDF booklet as guidance on how to answer the questions.

2) Write a proposal detailing the activity that needs to be funded. We can use the proposal and rationale that we have already as a starting point and edit it to address it for funding.

3) Fill in the Application Form which tells The Arts Council how much funding we are asking for and information about ourselves. It also collects background and racial information so that The Arts Council can monitor the background information of people who receive grants.

4) Include any relevant extra information for example, in our case, we may like to add that this piece will be touring.

5) Send off the application either by post or online.

I downloaded the actual application form as well, and found it to be quite complex. There were 11 pages of questions about ourselves and our artwork. I feel that it would be very interesting to complete the form to the best of our ability in order to better understand our idea. I think the process of filling in the form and discussing each of the questions would bring up things that we might not have even thought of due to this being a hypothetical piece.

Some Photographs of a Research Session

Evaluation of our Project so far....

I feel very confident in our 'Make Your Mark: Your Museum' project so far. For me, I feel that our idea encompasses everything that I wanted to explore in this project and I feel that we have achieved a great deal in the time that we have had so far. At the beginning of this project, I was extremely naive about what being a curator would entail, as well as how much work and how many people are involved in Art as a business. So this project has been quite a learning curve such as learning about Artist Statements, Proposals, Letters to Contractors and all the work behind Funding. 

I haven't been updating this blog as regularly as I would have liked to recently due to issues at home that have taken a toll on both my personal and college life. My group are aware of this. However, over the Christmas period I hope to gather my thoughts, ideas and notes/sketches in order to be able to contribute more regularly. 

Following this post, I hope to update some previous posts and then add some more of my findings from research I have done over the past couple of weeks.

To start: here is an image of a quick sketch that I produced of our proposed art piece. I drew it over the top of a map that I took from the Museum itself so that we would be able to visualise the piece in the space that we have chosen to put it.

Letter to Contractor

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are writing to request your services in installing a piece of artwork in the Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery. We are a collaborative group of artists and have been working on a public art piece which will be touring some of the major museums in the UK.

We estimate that the installation of this piece will take 24 hours and the museum has allowed us 24 hours after museum hours to complete the installation, on the 25th November 2011 (5pm to midnight) and the 26th (7am to midnight.) Staff from the museum will be on hand during these times.

The piece itself will consist of 5 separate acrylic tubes (4 measuring 2m with a diametre of 25cm) and 1 measuring 4m with a diametre of 50cm) and a concrete weighted base.

Blueprints are enclosed.

We look forward to hearing your reply, please contact us at enquiries@makeyourmark.com,

Sincerely

Elena Brake

Jess Bent

Louiza Hamidi

Fay Hawkes.

Evaluation of our Project so far

At this point, just before reading week, I have decided to evaluate our project so far to determine what will have to be done over the Christmas holidays in order to be ready with a presentation.

Our idea is pretty much finalised. Although we all have different questions and we could take this piece in many different ways, it is important not to dwell so much on the idea that we forget the evidence (writing, sketches etc) that we need to include in our presentation

We have a lot of visual material, ie photographs and sketches along with some written pieces to go with our idea, and we have looked through the blog to find that we have done well at recording our thoughts and ideas, so to create the presentation we should be able to pick and choose from the posts we have already uploaded to the blog.

As there was no computer access last week, a lot of the evidence for last week's session still needs to be updated on the blog. This will be one of the tasks for today. Last week, we wrote a list of tasks we had already completed, and those that still needed to be done.

(Bold, tasks that need to be done.)

-Funding research

-Proposal and opening letter

-Letter to contractor

-Newspaper Ad

-Website Concept

-Group CV

-Critical Rational

-Maquette

-Drawings/diagrams

-Leaflet

-Videos

-Photoshopped image

-Puzzle Pieces

The letter to the contractor was completed in draft form last week. My next task will be to write this up onto the blog as a finalised version.

Proposal

Proposal

We are a group of artists proposing to exhibit a piece of public art in the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery.

We want to create a large installation made up of acrylic tubes that will function as a funnel, for collecting information from the public. It will have different shoots that come from it, built at different heights so it is accessible for everyone.

We will have individual puzzle pieces (15x15cm) for members of the public to draw what museum means to them. These will then be posted into the funnel from the top, building enormous visual value to the piece, the minute you walk through the door.

Our interest is to find out what the public interpret the museum to be. Our piece is titled ‘Make Your Mark: Your Museum’. We are passionate about public and interactive art, and will be touring at different museums over the UK, hoping to create a snapshot of the public’s understanding of the museum in current times.

In the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, we would like the piece to go directly in the centre of the foyer, with the funnels branching off leading to all 4 sides of the upper level. We know that this installation will encourage people to take part and in turn, explore upstairs in the museum. We will run scheduled workshops and will also work closely with local schools, encouraging children to take part.

Please see attached sheets for more detail and blueprint.

I have some bad news. I will not be at our session on Thursday as I have an interview. I am going to try to get this finished so that I am not leaving you to do it, and you will only have the funding to do. I just need some direction.... Is this on the right tracks? Too detailed? Not detailed enough? Please could I have some pointers...

Artist statements

Today we have created a page of personal artist statements, to support our proposal. We have included personal email address and artist websites, so that the museum can explore our individual work, should they choose.

References

Louiza: Public Art, People, Projects, Process, ADAMS, Eileen (1997)
I found this book in the LRC. It gave me a clear idea of what public art entails and it's purpose. I was able to take an extract from it, which described a brief definition of public art. I then interpreted this into our own piece. I also found a lot infomation regarding funding, which has helped me to further explore this area. (01/12/2011)

Jess: 'The Benefit of Public Art' by Sara Selwood (1995)
I also found this book in the Public Art section of the LRC and I have found it very helpful. There are numerous quotes in this book that I can use to relate to our piece of art but I also think that it has made me aware of the public opinion. It's all very well thinking that everyone will understand our chosen idea but that is not neccessarily the case. (01/12/2011)


Elena: Exhibitions: Universal Marketing Tools, Alfred Alles (1973)Although this book isn't technically on artistic exhibitions, I found that some of the points it made could be applied to our exhibition. (01/12/2011)

Fay: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/museum
I have used this reference in the critical rationale to enforce our point of how the definition of museums are changing. (01/12/2011)

Newspaper Advert

I wrote this article and made it look like a real newspaper clipping using a website called www.fodey.com.

The article sums up our idea in a way that would invite people into the museum to participate. It also gives details of "Drop-in workshops", an idea we came up with last week to give more guidance to people who want to contribute. Originally, I had come with idea to run workshops on different days focused on different people, but we decided that this would be too structured and would turn into more of a project than a contemporary art piece.

Hypothetical Website Design

What is Public Art?

This morning we are researching what public art actually is. We wanted to find some books and artists who have created similar exhibitions.

I have found that public art is described as 'sculpture in the open air' and 'art in public places'. It's purpose is to be freely accesible by all members of the public. It can be permanent or temporary and hopefully will be interactive and stimulating.

"It has been claimed that public art is a cultural investment, vital to the economic recovery of many cities, attracting companies, adding to land values, creating employment. It is said to contribute to local distinctiveness and create a sense of place or regional identity."

Public Art People, Projects, Projects, ADAMS, Eileen, 1997, Page 7

I think our Make Your Mark: Your Museum piece, resembles a great example of how public art can be used to contribute to local distictiveness, by gathering people's ideas of what museum means to them. Our piece will be challenging peoples pre-conceptions of 'museum' by showing what the public and overall picture of the puzzling question of 'what does museum mean to you?'

I think it is important to understand that everyone may interpret a piece of art differently. Jess has just found an extract from a book, describing that public art can become problematic if many other people do not understand the meaning of our exhibit. I think it will be important to provide very concrete ideas of what this project is about and what it's purpose is. People will interpret 'museum' differently, making great use of diversity, but it will work well if everyone has a clear idea of what is intended by this piece. We would educate the public with this via a Make Your Mark website (hopefully there is as computer in the museum accessible to the public) that would include all the information that we share with the museum. We want this project to be completely transparent as if something includes members of the public, they are entitiled to have access to all the information regarding it. It would be good to have a video of us (the artists) talking about the project, on the website. From my experience, I find it very enjoyable watching video clips of the artists talking about their work.

after the group spoke with adam and james there were some fears that people would put anything down the chutes and ruin the piece, so after looking at different money collection boxes and ballet boxes, all seem to have one similar feature, a money slot! so we are thinking about harnessing this idea on the chutes so that it is only big enough to fit a puzzle piece measuring 15cm square, so no one can chuck, rubbish, food, etc. down the chutes

1st December, Research

To give our project more depth, we decided to look through library books about exhibition and public art. We found a lot of interesting quotes which spurred ideas. I was reading a book on the exhibition of products for companies, although mostly unrelated to our project I felt that some of the things in the book could be applied to our own exhibition.

"Distributing Literature", this is a section from the book: Exhibitions: Universal Marketing Tools. We decided last week that we would like our leaflets to be succinct and straight to the point, without offering much information on what exactly the piece was, as this information would be given to the public through open workshops. We felt that on top of this we should design a hypothetical website that people could be directed onto in order to learn more about the piece.

Here i have found how these interactive charity box gets the public more involved and more drawn to use the item, i think we need to make ensure that our structure is appealing and has an incentive to do it. The first simply adds more excitement to the venture but the second you really feel like you want to do it as if you succeed you win a free taco.

Recapping

because of my bout of tonsilitus i was unable to attend last weeks discussions, but this morning everyone has recapped me about the mind map made, james' discussion and how the overall idea has evolved, i happy with everything that has gone on and we are now working towards creating our proposal this afternoon. i will now be researching the ergonomics of ballet/collection boxes and how they are fitted together.

We have had a really productive session today. There were difficulties as Sharon has now left and Faye was absent, nevertheless we have managed to bring together lots of ideas and come up with a list of things that we need to do. To me, thats one of the most important things - providing some sturcture to our project so we know what exact outcomes we are looking for.

We have decided to go back to an initial idea of having some kind of theme to the piece. Meaning behind it may make the proposal stronger and the art piece more exciting. We have chosen to go with the museum theme, going back to our thoughts of how we could somehow extract from the public, through visual pictures, what museum means to them. Elena suggested adding it as a subtite.
Make Your Mark: Your Museum

It was so great talking with James and Adam in our actual cura session today. They have so much knowledge to offer and I am finding it so interesting picking their brains! I am learning vast amounts about the art and curatorial industry every week.


As for our project, we have made significant development to our initial ideas. The problem with Faye being absent is that she may have many ideas and different opinions that we would have loved to co-oporate with. I feel like we definitely missed her today. We will 'propose' what we have come up with to Faye and then hopefully start to produce some of our outcomes.

24th November, My Thoughts

Today was a very productive day despite a few difficulties. Sharon has left the group for her own reasons and Fay was absent due to illness. So today there was only Jess, Louiza and me, meaning it became difficult to make important decisions. Despite this, we produced a mind map filled with our thoughts on the project so far, and things that needed to be done. I filmed the process of us making the mindmap in the hope to capture the audio while we discussed it, but the audio was very quiet and hard to distinguish.

I have uploaded pictures of the mindmap, but intend to upload the video of us producing it along with a transcript of important ideas we discussed. We have decided to keep the mindmap and work on it more next week when Fay will be able to give her input, and we hope to create a very busy collection of our ideas.

Today we discussed further ideas of the actual piece and Louiza came up with an idea that the artwork put into the slots should be on blank puzzle pieces. This sparked the idea of after having collected the pieces, putting the puzzle together and creating a separate piece of work which might be permanent. I liked the idea, but I had a few problems with it and raised a few points. I felt that creating a second piece of work would remove the focus from our original idea, I felt that it should be one or the other, not both. The original idea is much more interactive and fun and I felt that if the public were to walk into the museum and see the masses of puzzle pieces collected in the cylinder in the foyer they would be able to imagine the pieces being put together which would make the work successful, I felt that we didn't actually need to do this in order to put the idea in people's heads. When presented with the choice of one or the other, I felt that the original idea was stronger, especially when thinking about Jess' ideas of producing artwork and exhibiting it in a matter of minutes, the original idea related more to the museum experience whereas the creating of a puzzle reminded me more about a school project which might not be considered contemporary art. We had to compromise quite a lot in order to come up with an agreement and I don't feel that we have managed that completely yet, and we hope that with Fay's input we will be able to bring more opinions to the table and work out what we are going to put forward our proposal for.

We spent a lot of time working on our actual idea and kept forgetting that we wouldn't actually be making it. We spent a bit of time thinking about the proposal and other pieces of documentation we could produce. We came up with the idea of producing leaflets and posters in the shape of puzzle pieces with a limited amount of information to get people into the museum through curiosity. We all agreed that we would be interested and curious by a very vague leaflet. We also decided we would write a newspaper ad and the transcript for a radio advertisement as these things would be required in order to publicise the event. We thought about planning workshops with people, perhaps at schools, care homes and open at the museum for the general public to encompass a wide range of people and generations.

We discussed with James and Adam the idea of a touring piece which would end up different in every location it visited. This was considered to be a very strong point of our idea and we were told that we should definitely exaggerate this point in our proposal and rationale.

Over the next week it is my job to come up with a newspaper advert and transcript for a radio advert. Other job roles within our group:

Louiza: Start working on a proposal and opening letter

Jess: Create leaflets/poster designs, work on producing a small maquette

Mindmap of Our Thoughts by Louiza Hamidi, Jess Bent and Elena Brake

Click on the images to enlarge

This evening I have been researching information about the content of art proposals and how they are written. The first thing that has stuck out to me is the One-Page-Proposal. This reminds me of when I was in school writing my CV for the first time, and we were taught to ensure that it was only one page, including soley important, direct information relating to the interest of the employer.

'Basically an art proposal is structured to convince the art gallery, specifically the owner or curator about your worth as an artist. You have to let them know that your art has some artistic significance and has found its own niche in the wild variations of artists and artistic practice, and two, that your art appeals to target-viewer of the gallery. If both requirements are met a little on the side but equally important issue is if your artworks can sell–meaning if this can sustain an exhibition and return the investment of the gallery. The case is different however for independently-run art spaces and museums.'

On the same site, I have learnt that it is quite important to enclose an opening letter, simply stating why we are writing.... "I am writing to submit an exhibition proposal for an interactive installation that will excite visitors and entice them to work their way to the first floor of the museum". Bad example, but you see what I mean. We should write I very short letter to introduce our proposal as well.

For the actual proposal... on the same site I have found a list of points.

'- Brief description of the project (its concept and how the space will be used)
- Curatorial brief (if you have a curator, otherwise don’t write this)
- CV of artist or exhibition proponent and of curator (again if you have a curator).
- Logistical requirements
- Source of funding or division of cost
- Proposal for collateral activities
- Contact details (Phone, email and reference to an online portfolio.)'

We should include a concise artist statement as well. I think in reality we would have an edited professional portfolio that we would present to the gallery, however I'm not sure we need this for this project. We could make a small mock portfolio (sketches/photos from all of us) and present it as if it was a complete portfolio.

It seems to be good to include the artists website too. We should make up an art website where as the artist, we would publicise our work, qualifications, past and future exhibitions and some kind of feedback section.

Most of this we can probably start working on, now that we have an idea of what kind of art installation we would like to propose. We will also need to look at funding. Depending on the materials we are using, (pens, paper/sticky notes) we can look at companies that may offer some sponsorship, funding or lower prices as we would be buying these material in bulk.

http://artexplainer.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/how-to-write-exhibition-proposal-for-art-galleries/

I have made a table with my thoughts about the hazards involved with making and displaying this piece of work, along with possible measures to control risk. I will send this information to Paul Bullows, Health and Safety Officer, who is happy to help us to put together a professional risk assessment form.

My thoughts on the Museum 'experience'...

After talking to Fay about what we do/don't like about Museum's and Galleries, I wrote down my own thoughts and opinions and how it links in with our project idea so far...

"I find that some museum experiences can become really impersonal and therefore, I don't feel that I can call my visit an 'experience'. Everything is structured, labelled, placed in it's (correct?) place and then separated from the audience by placement in a cabinet or behind a sheet of glass. Sometimes the actual position of the object in the display cabinet can mean our view is obscured and as a result, we don't really see the object/painting etc in it's full beauty and draw an understanding from it. 


What I like about our idea is that it is designed to bring in the public and allow them to become involved in the museum and create their own ideas/art pieces that can be displayed and shared. Their work in turn becomes an artefact in the museum. Something else that can be explored and appreciated by others. With this idea, people can walk around the finished product and participate in the creation as well."

Further thoughts on our idea...

After reflecting on our ideas, I am becoming more and more excited about the idea of 'MAKE YOUR MARK'. It's true to say, well I feel it is, that everyone has something to say and something worth sharing. I feel that people will engage in this idea well because it's presenting the opportunity for anyone to have a say.

My notes taken at the trip to the Museum on 17th Nov:

(On our idea)

• like the process of coming from Artist to Art piece to being collected and curated and then exhibited in a matter of minutes. Everyone who takes part in this piece will experience the process of artwork becoming an object in an exhibition first hand in a very short period of time. 
• like everything else in the museum, this collective artwork becomes yet another artefact?
• public are a part of the artwork
• referring back to idea of mausoleum - this process instantly encases and closes off the works produced by the public. this is a morbid thought. however, shouldn't we celebrate the fact that we are able to do that? that we are able to protect and cherish those things that people used/produced years ago? and that we will be allowing the public to share their views on things?

'Make Your Mark' ideas and notes...

Yesterday we had our first group meeting to discuss our ideas, and start looking at spaces within the Museum that we could use to base our project around. We started off meeting in the Studio foyer and recorded our discussion, but all of us found that we were coming up with ideas even though we hadn't really decided on a space to work in. We discussed the idea of creating a project that focused on what we had been talking about in our Cura 100 sessions (views on the Museum and how it can bring about the feeling of a mausoleum) instead of concentrating on the actual contents of the exhibitions - we, all five of us, we afraid that we would just end up replicating a piece that was already present.
We then decided that in order to expand and develop our ideas, we needed to leave the Studio and actually visit Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery so we could walk around the space and see what would be available for us to use.
Upon entering the building, we almost instantly decided that we wanted to do something that would draw in more visitors/tourists/members of the public. And so, where else to start looking than the entrance hall itself?
Here are some images of the sketches and notes I took while we were looking around our chosen space:

As you can see, we have chosen to create a piece that is very central to the building. Something that will hopefully capture the attention of passers by and draw them into the Museum. At first, we thought that we would just place it in the Entrance Hall, but I was worried that this didn't really bring people into the heart of the Museum. It would just make them walk through the doors and not necessarily  explore the entire building. After discussing some more, we decided that we actually wanted to make the work become a part of the museum. 

The second sketch was one that I drew overlooking the Entrance Hall from upstairs in the Gallery. By making people walk upstairs to be able to participate in the artwork means that they will perhaps be drawn into the other rooms to look around. 

The purpose of this piece is essentially to create a collective artwork that will mean that anyone can join in. Not just art students or established artists but members of the public, tourists and even the curators and others that work at the museum itself. 

We have been going back and forth between our ideas of using the concept of 'what is a museum' as the theme of our art piece. I feel it would be interesting to see quick sketches and phrases in regards to what people think a museum is and what it means to them. I know it may be a slightly structured question, and obviously the environment of being surrounded by museum artifacts will have a significant difference on peoples answers. The opinions of members of the public are invaluable, as museums are for members of the public.
After researching a lot about post-modernism during contextual studies, I can't help but have realised how much we question things in popular culture these days. We appear to be in a time when we are even unsure what a museum is and whether we are supposed to enjoy it or not.

me and jess had a conversation whilst setting up the blog which i found quite interesting, we both felt that the museum was to orderly and "sterile" in the way most things were kept away from the visitors in glass cases, we felt lots of space within the museum were not being used to its full potential, which is kind of what we want our peice to portray, to maybe let the museum realise that there are many spaces within their establishment that can be used, little corners, spaces within the cafe area, even hallways and stairwells.

After visiting the museum again today, we had various discussions about our ideas and began rapidly expanding on our thoughts already. We have chosen to stick with the central foyer area in hopes to develop a proposal to the museum in regards to an installation that leads people upstairs.

With the idea of making an interactive piece of artwork that uses the viewers as the artist, we hope to meet the entertainment needs of people of all ages. As we walked into the museum with the thought of using post it notes in our heads, I immediately saw these donation boxes, where coins are encased in a glass container - something that has left a physical mark from members of the public who have visited the museum.

I thought about us creating (or at least coming up with a plan to create) some kind of transparent container that will hold all of the pictures. It would be very interactive and give visiters the satisfaction of participating n a piece of art work. I enjoy knowing that I have left a mark somewhere, no matter how detailed or significant.

17th November, First Group Meeting

We met at the entrance to the studio 11 and began to discuss our ideas. Sharon recorded our conversation for reference. We read through the brief together and brought our own interpretations to the task. However we found that being in the studio rather than in the space we were trying to visualised proved difficult and we decided to go to the museum in order to see the space. I took photos as we went around for documentation which we thought we might be able to draw onto or even photoshop our ideas into the space to get a feel for what we wanted to achieve.

Health and Safety

I was particularly thinking about health and safety issues, as I personally know a Health and Safety officer who can help us to create a risk assessment form which will be useful for our portfolio.

i.e.

• Our idea was going to be partly in the main entrance to the museum, so I checked to see if there was enough space either side of our space to get out quickly in the event of an emergency.
• Our idea would include height and attracting people to the edge of the barrier, so I noted that there could be a risk of someone leaning too far over and possibly falling.

I will try to contact the Health and Safety officer in order to get his thoughts on our project.

Our Idea

I am happy with the project and the space we have chosen. We decided we wanted something interactive, where people of all ages would be encouraged to contribute to the piece. We have named this piece "Make your Mark", however this name might change as our idea develops further.

We first thought about inviting people to come and write or draw on a wall. I noted that this idea reminded me of several pieces in the British Art Show 7 which changes in every space. People in Plymouth would respond differently to people in London, for example. The piece would make a statement of culture in Plymouth and within the museum with little prompting. We had ideas to have a starting question, ie "Write/draw something that represents your thoughts of the museum" but we agreed that people would automatically respond to the museum through being in a museum space. Louiza noticed a transparent collection box which prompted an idea to put drawings through a slot where it would fall into a transparent box, eventually filling up with people's contributions. Then the idea came to having a massive chute that stood in the centre of the museum, in order to contribute, people must climb the stairs and go to the balcony where there would be four slots (at different heights to encourage participants from all ages), where people could place their contributions (on a piece of card) which would slide down the tubes into the see through collumn in the entrance hall.

First discussion

Today we got together to decide on the space and what sort of art we wanted to produce for the space. I did a sound recording of all of our discussions and Elena took photoes, all of which will be added to the blog at a later date. The first picture is a map showing the floor plan of the of the museum. The next shows the ceiling area in the foyer, you can just see the lines which are suspended across the central space, which we may use to create part of our display.

Left to Right, Louiza Hamidi, Sharon Kirkland, Elena Brake, Fay Hawkes, Jess Bent

Today our group met in the morning before our cura100 lesson to start discussing various ideas that we had for our submission we started off in the studio 11 foyer, but quickly found we couldn't visualise the spaces we were talking about so we took a trip to the museum to continue our talk. We liked the idea of using the central piece of the hall and then making it go up towards the first floor, encouraging people to be curious and go up to have a look. The place we looked at is on the edge of the museum in the fact that people dont look at the space they just walk by but on the other hand is right infront of the visitors face as they have to walk by it. Forcing people to become curious of whats up/down there. we have discussed interactive themes and how visitors contribute e.g drawing/writing on paper and sticking it somewhere, we then came up with the idea of using a container then people slotted in their thoughts ideas and drawings, filling the space with colour and imagination. Then collaborated all our ideas into thinking of a central collumn in the foyer and then having chutes on the first floor that people can slot their peices in and down into the column.