Week12#Install Reflection or One Flower One World

My final exhibition was held at the fire engine station and in preparation for it we had a rather big problem on 19 April. Firstly, we could not combine as a fire engine station team as J.L. had hoped to do to install our exhibition. But she thinks one of the better things is that we spontaneously combined with our partners in the same type of exhibition into a teamwork group, such as Chang Yu and Xiaotong Wu, Borui Zhang and I. We did everything together from choosing the exhibits to selecting the installation time to identifying the equipment to be rented from ECA Bookit. This kind of group work helped my exhibition installation work very much. Secondly, we had some students throughout the venue whose exhibition work was required to be hung on display boards, but they had not been painted in advance for protection, which was also a problem caused by not preparing well in advance.

As for my own exhibition, my exhibition focuses on digital media works, so the main elements I need to confirm are the placement of my equipment, the plugs and the wiring.

So once again I checked on Bookit what equipment I needed and I asked Jake if I could borrow the TV monitor from staff only, Jake asked my reasoning and told me I would get back to me the next morning, which I was very grateful for as it made the visual presentation of my exhibition more complete.

My exhibition was scheduled to start at around 11:00 am on the 20th of April, so Borui Zhang and I went to the ECA central bookit at 9:00 am that day to rent our equipment, and once we had it, we went back to our respective venues to set it up. Luckily, the TV monitor Jake had rented for us arrived at the fire engine station at the same time, and the planned venue was set up with the projectors and monitors in place. I then used the gaffa tape that J.L. had told me about the day before to secure the cable and loose wires in case people would trip over them. Most of my exhibition preparation was basically complete.

Next, I used four devices connected to each of my three computers with an iPad playback source to begin looping my pre-prepared video artworks of the artists, adjusting the sound, resolution, etc. with the help of the technicians, and my exhibition preparations were over at 10:40 sharp. I placed the booklet I had made for this work next to one of the videos for the audience to pick up and read, and I put a comment book on the stand where the work was to be displayed for the audience to leave comments.

Throughout the installation, I learned a lot about curating. First of all, no matter how we plan in our minds, the actual installation operation will definitely be different from the imagination, even very different, so we need to act in advance as much as possible to save time for valuable things; secondly, We need to pay attention to safety issues during the installation process. Loose wires are absolutely not allowed, and there will be a safety hazard of falling. Therefore, we need to maximize the safety factor in the venue during the process.

In the end, I think there are still many things that I need to improve and consider in the whole process of curating, but as J.L. said, this is our first success, and we need to learn and reflect while enjoying the process.