(1) Identify your key responsibilities and list the main areas of work you have been involved in. Briefly highlight the skills and competencies that are relevant to this project/work area.

(2)  Looking ahead, list your key objectives for the GRP. 3-7 SMART  (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timed) objectives should be noted with realistic timescales and focused outcomes. The objectives should cover the project itself and your own role.

Key SMART Objectives as of October/November 2021

Establish a flexible and scalable work strategy [Deadline: November 4th]

• Utilise the Miroboard to establish project components and establish a general timeline, including key markers (such as ethics submission and launch)
• Prepare templates for necessary materials (such as risk assessments) for each component.
• Develop a wellbeing strategy for all co-workers with associated 2-page support document outlining core responsibilities to one another.

Develop longlist of exhibition items [End of November]

• Research art as a mindful tool and develop a set of selection criteria.
• Collaborate as a team to identify a longlist of approximately 50-60 items in length from the digital catalogues.
• Prepare a document with key metadata, sample images, etc. to share with shortlisting panel.

Prepare Exhibition Proposal for Ethics Review [Deadline: December 15th]

• Co-ordinate with exhibition manager (Frankie) to prepare essential materials:
  • Consent form
  • Participant Information Sheet
  • Co-curator selection procedure
  • Risk management strategies
• Identify essential training for team members and co-ordinate training.
• Draft a core 2-page outline of exhibition component of the exhibition.

Prepare a project outline [Deadline: January 4th]

• Incorporate feedback from Pitch meeting on December 3rd into any pre-existing plans.
• Work with a panel to identify short list of artworks for the exhibition.
• Finalise plans for each core component of the project. This will include details of the proposed activities, risk assessments, budgeting, and timelines, and a single A4 page summary.

Submit for ethics approval [Deadline: January 24th]

• Prepare answers to questionnaire along with associated materials (consent forms, participant information sheets, risk assessments, questionnaires)

Key SMART Objectives as of late January 2022
[Please click here to view a full timeline of the project as a whole as of 24th January 2022] 

Find & Select Co-curators [Deadline: February 23rd]

• Advertise for student co-curator positions, including using JISC to create an online questionnaire.
  • Meet with group project members to select student co-curators from responses
• Contact members of staff (academic, security services, and professional support).
• Establish contact with potential co-curators to explain the project, their responsibilities, and confirm willingness to participate.

Prepare Templates of Exhibition pages [Deadline: 16th March]

• Hire graphic designer or artist to develop landing page hero/header image.
• Develop a standard template with essential components for exhibit pages (e.g. hero image, video embed, cross-linking gallery, etc.).
• Draft a short (2 page) guidance document for the website including sizes of images, colour scheme, minimum and maximum word count of text, etc. to guide the later use of the templates and ensure that any text or imagery input works well with the template as a whole and does not result in formatting issues.

Organise preliminary meetings and recording sessions for co-curators [Ongoing: early march, last recording deadline 11th of March]

• Meet with co-curators for artwork selection.
• Hire audio technician & borrow other equipment.
• Co-ordinate schedules of co-curators, Dr Kitty Wheater, and sound technicians for recordings.

Please note that due to the complex nature of the project along with unforeseen circumstances, many of the dates and details listed above shifted significantly as part of the process.  For example, our meetings with some co-curators were rescheduled due to cases of Covid-19. 

(3) Discursive self-reflection

The project rapidly evolved from its inception in September, moving from a standard exhibition format to a co-curatorial model, and from a thematic focus on mental ill-health to mental wellbeing. This was in a large part due to the close collaboration between the project members with numerous ideas being passed around. Looking back to this stage of the project, I feel that while we were making progress, this slowed down as the project became more complex. In particular, we were held back by a lack of clarity: we were striving to do many new things, experiment with new modes of engagement, curation, and so forth. It wasn’t the ambitious nature, but the fact that we did not pin the ideas down sooner slowed our project’s development. This was especially apparent when it came to submitting for ethics approval, which I worked on with Frankie Vale, who was leading the online exhibition portion of the project.

Nevertheless, once the groundwork had been laid, the project accelerated rapidly. I moved from coordination, logistics and risk management to working alongside Frankie Vale on the exhibition and providing general support for the wellbeing stations and outreach activities. Here we faced a significant number of scheduling challenges, brought about by strike action and covid-19, along with the sheer number of different persons involved!  At this point, we divided the labour, with Frankie organising the meetings and recordings with the support of Carmen Hesketh, while I focused on the exhibition’s design and templates. We came together at the end to draw together all the materials ready for the successful exhibition launch on schedule, in tandem with the wellbeing stations and welcome week.

Throughout the project, the nature of the five key component parts (management and logistics, exhibition, wellbeing stations, outreach activities, and social media) did make team co-ordination difficult. A miroboard used as a brainstorming and planning tool was somewhat successful at the start of the project, helping us to share ideas and establish general timelines, but looking back we should have switched to a more precise scheduling tool at an earlier date. As the project progressed, it also became increasingly difficult to switch and support other branches of the project, due to the specialist nature each branch. This was particularly apparent in the case of the exhibition design. Weekly meetings with brief summaries outlining each project and sharing key updates and decisions made, would have made it easier to support one another in this way. That being said, I feel that we set ourselves a really challenging task, and responded by adapting rapidly to ever changing circumstances.

1.2 Formative Assessment | Self Appraisal / Guided Research Placement by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0