Today was the day and we collected together in the space to begin installing the artworks. A lot of the artists had devised their own hanging solutions, enabling us to delegate certain roles out straight away. As a start we thought about how to group the works between the two rooms. I suggested grouping Emma and Jodie's works together for their shared colours and pictoral format. By including a piece from Emily, who's work featured in both rooms, we tied the exhibition together across the two rooms and gave it cohesion.
We had a few artworks relying on projectors or screens alongside installation elements, which made logistically setting up within the space somewhat limiting. I suggested moving Hannah D's work slightly further along, and use features on the walls to 'tie off' her hanging paper while also affording the centre of our exhibition some extra breathing room. However Chloe, who was working with Hannah as a curator pair, had brought some no-damage wall hooks and was quite set on using them either side of the pillar. As it was her curator pairing and an aspect she was quite passionate about pursuing I did not question her decision any further although I felt like this middle section could have been better spaced and less clustered. This was becoming harder for me as I was not prepared to challenge my coursemates and risk personally fall out with anyone over differences in vision, or treading on peoples toes with regard to their contribution, especially when I know my own tastes sometimes differ or challenge the general art establishment. This would not have been the case in a purely professional format, and I feel like a much more open dialogue is promoted within an established institution and the creative processes of people specifically employed for their roles, without worrying about everyone having 'equal' participatory roles.
I had been in conversation with Jake for his piece and he had sent me a photo of a prototype format for his boxes (left). It was quite rigid and simple however and I felt that it would be possible to create something more visually interesting and that could perhaps interact with the film itself in some way. He specifically left the entirety of the curational decisions in my hands, beyond the prototypes he supplied. This trust really boosted me to make my own decisions and made me feel like I had the power to affect and pose the works in my own way. Instead of having them simply stacked side by side, I upturned and intervened with the boxes to give an irregular surface. Turning some on their side allowed the projection to venture inside the object, whilst others held the projection simply on their surface. When paired with the projection, Jake could be seen passing from the surface of one box to another. When the perspective of the film changed, he could instead be seen adding bricks to the pile, creating a stack on a stack. Instead of the boxes just being a substrate for the projection, in this way they actually became an essential part of the film itself.
Another interesting aspect of our curational process was the work of Harry, Evan and Joe, who had specifically posed their piece as an extra curational challenge for us. I thought this was an inspired idea not only in itself, but also in terms of the rest of the curation project, it acted almost as an additional lighthearted game or challenge as we all interacted with the items and considered potentialities. The manifesto stated that they had provided us with all of the materials, yet they did not provide pins or nails to secure the frames. Someone suggested we leave everything stacked artfully in the corner, as a tongue in cheek response to their passing of responsibility onto us. However we had such a beautiful big wall space, and a great deal of base material, I thought it would be not in the spirit of the challenge to respond so sarcastically, as as we were all being challenged on curation, why not arrange the images in a way which was curationally suggestive, and conceptualised the piece in a new way?
Initially I noted certain symmetries in some of the items they had given us, and suggested creating a kind of symmetrical mandala of the everyday; arranging them in frames spreading outward from the central manifesto, as mandala are supposed to represent universes, this piece could represent aspects of the tangible universe for the artists. Others suggested arranging the objects in a way which could suggest interaction, such as positioning the pink gun pointing towards the pierced condom to suggest the action of a bullet passing through, the blue pointed towards the blue balloon to suggest another potentiality. I liked these ideas as they opened their own narratives.
We forced the burnt christmas tree which we had been given into one of the frames, completely reforming it and giving this particular frame a lot of texture and depth. Finally we settled on an arrangement of the objects in frames, which we mapped out and interacted with on the floor beforehand as you can see above. I suggested having the mountboards added to the walls to suggest spaces or unknowns between the tangible objects, whilst also blending into the fabric of the wall. Hinting that this was an incomplete picture, and perhaps that it is the spaces or interactions that happen between these objects which also tells a large part of the story. This was very fun to get involved with and create. Out of all of the curation we worked over as a team, this was definitely the most enjoyable to me.
Finally as this was all underway I gave Jodie a helping hand with the installation of her piece. She had brought Command strips; adhesive strips which were specifically designed to not damage the wall. Her piece was painted onto foam mountboard and was very light, but had warped slightly in the process, and so did not easily sit against the wall. The strips did not succesfully hang the piece, so we tried using superglue to secure the command strips to artwork and furthermore together, as this was the area which was proving problematic. However they then detatched from the wall altogether. Not wanting to glue the wall, our final option was a series of small flatheaded nails which held the piece securely with minimal damage. This was a very practical test in the logistics of hanging pieces painted on an unsual medium, and really tested our problem solving. It also reminded me of the essential nature of having artists nearby or at least contactable during the exhibition process, as I would not have felt comfortable nailing her piece to the wall without her go ahead.
I had been in conversation with Jake for his piece and he had sent me a photo of a prototype format for his boxes (left). It was quite rigid and simple however and I felt that it would be possible to create something more visually interesting and that could perhaps interact with the film itself in some way. He specifically left the entirety of the curational decisions in my hands, beyond the prototypes he supplied. This trust really boosted me to make my own decisions and made me feel like I had the power to affect and pose the works in my own way. Instead of having them simply stacked side by side, I upturned and intervened with the boxes to give an irregular surface. Turning some on their side allowed the projection to venture inside the object, whilst others held the projection simply on their surface. When paired with the projection, Jake could be seen passing from the surface of one box to another. When the perspective of the film changed, he could instead be seen adding bricks to the pile, creating a stack on a stack. Instead of the boxes just being a substrate for the projection, in this way they actually became an essential part of the film itself. 
Another interesting aspect of our curational process was the work of Harry, Evan and Joe, who had specifically posed their piece as an extra curational challenge for us. I thought this was an inspired idea not only in itself, but also in terms of the rest of the curation project, it acted almost as an additional lighthearted game or challenge as we all interacted with the items and considered potentialities. The manifesto stated that they had provided us with all of the materials, yet they did not provide pins or nails to secure the frames. Someone suggested we leave everything stacked artfully in the corner, as a tongue in cheek response to their passing of responsibility onto us. However we had such a beautiful big wall space, and a great deal of base material, I thought it would be not in the spirit of the challenge to respond so sarcastically, as as we were all being challenged on curation, why not arrange the images in a way which was curationally suggestive, and conceptualised the piece in a new way? 
Initially I noted certain symmetries in some of the items they had given us, and suggested creating a kind of symmetrical mandala of the everyday; arranging them in frames spreading outward from the central manifesto, as mandala are supposed to represent universes, this piece could represent aspects of the tangible universe for the artists. Others suggested arranging the objects in a way which could suggest interaction, such as positioning the pink gun pointing towards the pierced condom to suggest the action of a bullet passing through, the blue pointed towards the blue balloon to suggest another potentiality. I liked these ideas as they opened their own narratives.
We forced the burnt christmas tree which we had been given into one of the frames, completely reforming it and giving this particular frame a lot of texture and depth. Finally we settled on an arrangement of the objects in frames, which we mapped out and interacted with on the floor beforehand as you can see above. I suggested having the mountboards added to the walls to suggest spaces or unknowns between the tangible objects, whilst also blending into the fabric of the wall. Hinting that this was an incomplete picture, and perhaps that it is the spaces or interactions that happen between these objects which also tells a large part of the story. This was very fun to get involved with and create. Out of all of the curation we worked over as a team, this was definitely the most enjoyable to me. 
Finally as this was all underway I gave Jodie a helping hand with the installation of her piece. She had brought Command strips; adhesive strips which were specifically designed to not damage the wall. Her piece was painted onto foam mountboard and was very light, but had warped slightly in the process, and so did not easily sit against the wall. The strips did not succesfully hang the piece, so we tried using superglue to secure the command strips to artwork and furthermore together, as this was the area which was proving problematic. However they then detatched from the wall altogether. Not wanting to glue the wall, our final option was a series of small flatheaded nails which held the piece securely with minimal damage. This was a very practical test in the logistics of hanging pieces painted on an unsual medium, and really tested our problem solving. It also reminded me of the essential nature of having artists nearby or at least contactable during the exhibition process, as I would not have felt comfortable nailing her piece to the wall without her go ahead.
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