Watching Meanwhile... (Part 3)

I left off quite abruptly last time, where was I?

The digital works, we selected so many that it was beginning to look like our show would have a healthy balance between digital and the physical. This made for an interesting curatorial choice as we ended up with a room dominated by al digital pieces while the other room only had one. This was something that was decided quite early on with the placement of work as one room was slightly darker in nature and we felt we could create something really interesting. My own input with this room was that i really wanted to create a 'hall of paintings' out of a group of projected digital works. I felt that the end result of the room gave way to a highly interesting collection of pieces that complimented each other not only in placement and colour but in content as well. Following well with our overall theme, there was a comical element to be found in each of the pieces but at the same time, something far more serious to back it up.

From here there was a small amount of tinkering to be done and to just spend time in the space in order to ensure we had made the best decisions possible at that time. Nearing the end of the day we all spent time placing the vinyl exhibition title and description on the wall, a job taken largely by the rest of the team. With this complete there was little left to do but tidy and look forward to the private view and evaluation session.

The next day we all returned to make last minute adjustments and meet with the curator of the Sidney Cooper gallery, Katie McGown. She visited and took the show in while it was still empty in order to deliver feedback to us, providing insight from a professional curators point of view.

This went down really well and she had very little to say negatively and was very supportive of the decisions we had made as a group.

Having this successful evaluation out of the way we just had to put together a table of private view drinks and wait for people to arrive. Within half an hour we had around twenty people in the exhibition with a further thirty five to join them afterward, making for one crowded private view. There was a definite positive buzz in the air as the event went on, we spoke to a lot of the guests and managed to get really positive feedback.

The day after we hosted a critique session that saw a couple of the exhibiting artists join the discussion as well as a group of external artists as well. We all drank some tea and really got into talking about the work in the exhibition as well as the works brought along by the external artists.

Overall the Meanwhile experience was fantastic and it has resulted in future opportunities for further group shows and other art events. Looking back at the short time we have had to make this project come to life is interesting and confidence boosting to think we had put together an international art exhibition in such a short period. I can safely say there will be more to see from Meanwhile.