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.