The two-week tour felt very successful. Although not all of our venues had large visitor numbers, many of them had more than we anticipated, and we had lovely, positive interactions at each stop.

Apart from the opening event, I had two invigilation shifts: in the afternoon at Drumbrae Library on February 17^th, and in the morning at North Edinburgh Arts on February 19^th. Drumbrae Library was a particularly quiet venue, with only a few visitors coming in during my shift; North Edinburgh Arts drew a larger crowd, with more people coming in to see the art and chat.

I was personally very proud of the positive response visitors had to the interpretive text. Although not everyone chose to read it, many visitors did pick it up and commented on its value. I think it speaks to the efficacy of our exhibition and curatorial decisions that the exhibition was not dependant on the text and that visitors felt encouraged to freely explore the space and make their own connections with the art—I was particularly taken by one woman who looked closely at the art and then asked if the theme was “light.”

I was also thrilled to see this review in Loaf Magazine. The reviewer notes that “by embracing movement in its display,” the exhibition encouraged an accessible encounter with art for a diverse audience. They also write:

The work that isn’t Scottish in origin or subject feels clear in its relevance, too. The modern, pop art-esque Secreting Myths adds discomforting chromatics to classic colonial portraiture, whilst the minuscule, intoxicating Antediluvian Landscape transports the viewer to a place in the world. Given the movement at the heart of the exhibition and of the facilitators Travelling Gallery, this seems fitting.[1]

I was pleased to read this particular impression of the exhibition, and found it immensely exciting that this underlying theme of movement had been apparent to an external visitor. As discussed in an earlier post, our theme and exhibition had grown out of an initial interest in putting static works of art in motion, and I find it poignant that this interest continued to shine through in our final product.

 

[Word Count: 359]

 

Footnote

[1] Rob Bazaral, review of Situated, Loaf Magazine, March 9, 2020, https://www.loafmagazine.com/content/a-gallery-in-a-bus-situated-travelling-gallery.

Bibliography

Bazaral, Rob. Review of Situated, Loaf Magazine, March 9, 2020. https://www.loafmagazine.com/content/a-gallery-in-a-bus-situated-travelling-gallery.

Feb 25, 2020

The highlight of the opening event for me was Carla’s musical performance: an original thirty-minute set of compositions and improvisations created from her work with the Scottish Sound Archive to consider non-visual representations of place and to showcase another University Collection. It was captivating, moving, and resonated beautifully with the themes of the exhibition.

I was also, however, reflecting on how Carla’s performance resonated with our brief overall. We had initially decided to commission a performance due to the brief’s outline that we should “[program] associated events,” but Carla’s performance—as well as the process of commissioning it—ended up addressing several of the brief problems as well.

The second “general” brief problem asks: How can we create experimental programs and activities with institutions that achieve a balance between “fit” and “challenge”? Carla’s performance and experimental use of the Sound Archive introduced a “third” institution to our project.

This process of integration also linked to our first brief problem: What is the purpose of the Art Collection, how should it be used, and who is it for? In this instance, Carla demonstrated how creative interventions can use these institutional archives and collections as sources of inspiration for contemporary projects.

There were also interesting parallels between our navigation of constraints with the Art Collection and the Travelling Gallery, and Carla’s navigation of constraints with the Scottish Sound Archive, addressing the question: How can we navigate constraints, including accreditation standards, stakeholder interests, spatial limitations and audience needs, in order to promote engagement with our holdings? Much of Carla’s work with the Sound Archive involved navigating the complexities of copyright access. This highlighted for me a parallel between her experience and that of encouraging public visitors to access the Art Collection: the tension between promoting engagement and the difficulties of accessing that material to engage with it.

I was particularly moved by Carla’s integration of a “Unknown Air” she was inspired by from the Sound Archive. There is a challenge to working with collections that have limited recorded knowledge of many of their items; but Carla’s performance demonstrated how not just a research approach, but a creative one, can create something beautiful from these gaps.

 

[Word Count: 362]

Feb 11, 2020

As discussed in my case study, we were initially very committed to displaying the works on collection storage racks, enabling viewers to see what the works “normally” look like in the collection itself. I got in touch with both the Van Abbe Museum and MIMA, who also used storage racking in [an exhibition], to ask how they managed security and stability concerns. Their strategies, however, were still not secure enough to address the concern of how the works would shift while the bus was in motion, which was obviously not a constraint they faced.

To mitigate these risks to the art, we instead investigated the possibility of creating a wallpaper for the bus that would provide a backdrop of a storage rack. We were initially uninspired by this suggestion, worrying that it would look “fake” and seem patronizing to our viewers, but we decided to research its feasibility regardless. I volunteered to lead this part of the project, from initial research to installation.

I was very impressed with the final product. The image had a depth that I hadn’t anticipated, and truly appeared to be a three-dimensional rack. I had initially been concerned about the colour quality, since we could only afford to use Reprographics’ least-expensive printer, but in person the colours actually helped increase the three-dimensional effect of the image—and it was incredibly crisp.

Thinking back to Charlotte Klonk’s remarks about the importance of “honest” installations (discussed in my case study), I feel that this photographic reproduction of the rack was in fact as “honest” as using a real storage rack would have been. It added useful visual context when explaining the premise of a “university collection” to members of the public, who all quickly grasped what was being represented.

An unexpected benefit to the wallpaper was how easy it made the artwork installation. Its grid-like pattern made it easy to communicate clearly with the installers and each other where exactly we wanted works situated, and by using the lines of the rack to make things appear level we didn’t have to worry about levelling works ourselves. The bus was ready to tour!

 

[Word Count: 355]

Feb 9, 2020