This week is a busy one, at time of writing (Tuesday 9th December) is the deadline for handing in the dissertation onto the portal, so I had yesterday off as can be read about in the previous post. Today is also the day for removing our finished work, framed and printed, from the store room and get it curated and then in the afternoon hung on the wall in the foyer. Tomorrow will feature the finishing off of the hanging and then the exhibition opening at 5pm. It’s a busy three days alright, but I’m ready for it.
First up this morning though is dropping off the library books used for getting this far into the dissertation, my reasoning being that someone else might want to look at old photos of dead people and concrete buildings. Yeah, probably not. Either that or they are taking up too much room in my study at home and I don’t want to get anything on them before they are returned. If I need them for polishing up the dissertation in the New Year I’ll get them back out of the library and read them again.
Up now into room MK202 to see if anyone will be joining me, this is the last chance that many will have to spend time with Gavin before the 2pm dissertation deadline, although a few of my classmates will have learning plans that allow them to hand in a week later, so I suspect they’ll be ok. A few of them are on the WhatsApp chat explaining how they’ve only done this many words, it’s only a draft and it doesn’t need to be formatted perfectly, but I think that this decision will not be appreciated by the lecturers. It was very clear from the Draft Dissertation assignment in Canvas that all the components needed to be there in the essay, so I was super careful to have done this, I won’t be alone but there are a couple who haven’t been quite as completist.
Today, as mentioned, we’re intending to begin the curating of the show and then the hanging later today.
Gathering in the basement with the rest of the team we awaited some news, Gavin and Euripides came and asked us to come up to the ground floor where we were to remove our works from the Exhibition Store Room and then place them on the floor in the area of the foyer so that we could curate the images in a way that suits them all.
They told us that all different factors affect the positioning, such as colours, overall appearance (dark v light) , portrait v landscape, and all manner of other reasons that appear to be more by feeling than a written set of rules.
When I looked at mine first I noticed that it was upside down, and lifting it I could see that the hangers had been put on upside down too. This would mean that I needed to remove the hangers and then refit them on the other side of the frame so that it would hang the right way up.
They told us of the multiples of 5 rule whereby each picture is hung at a distance from the others from different distances but always a multiple of 5, so 5,10,15,20 etc.
Euripides and Dan did a first pass of moving items around and then once they’d left for meetings Gavin came down to assist also. He’s changed a few things around to balance up and it all seems to fit well. He then took a photo of the layout and measured it up and marked up the drawing with the distances so that the transfer of the art to the wall will be easier to handle.
Time for a lunch break and a snooze before the 2 ‘o’ clock hanging commences.
Hanging Time
First up was Euripides asking us all to measure the backs of the frames. Measuring from point to point on the hanging plates to allow the calculations to be made for the hole drilling. It’s required as the hole locations are behind the images and therefore tricky to guess. Had they been wall plates they’d be easier to mark through and then drill. Everyone took it in turns to mark the rear of their own frame and there were some that hadn’t been able to see when the instructions were being given so needed a bit of support.
Whilst we were picking up the images to measure, Sophie’s picture appeared to have water on it, and it turned out a leak in the wall above the area was coming through with the filthy weather and dripping onto her work. It was run off rather than rubbing it or sponging it off and all seemed to dry up correctly in the end.
We started off with the central section of pictures and worked outwards using the pictures and measurements to align it as preferred. It took a while as there were questions about whether we should be using screws or nails, the nails would be great but when hammering them, the whole board was rattling and we would have been in danger of shaking off previously hung frames.
The change to screws was inevitable and the screwing began, one followed by another, then a test hang of the frame. On to the next one using the gaps and sizes previously mentioned. It’s 4:45 now and there are two pictures left to hang. There have been a few of the group who have jumped in and helped out drilling measuring and hanging, but I have tried to stay out of the way a little more than I did in Centrala. I found that I was taking over at that exhibition and wanted to give the others a chance to learn how to handle power tools and tape measures.
Next Steps
Euripides, at one point, asked me where I was going next with my work. I told him that I was planning on shooting some more redscale film and going back to the same building. I also said I wasn’t sure what I should be doing after the New Year as my Module appeared to show me creating work and planning for the degree show. Euripides said that this was linked to the 6FP012 module and that whilst I should do the planning and reviews etc, I would not be required to do the work for the degree show. This is due to me doing the degree show next year in my sixth and final year when I will be doing the 6FP012 module. I still don’t fully understand and I get that me being a pert time student makes it tricky to work out but I’ll just play along next year and see what I need to do as i go along. He did say though that I should just carry on making work and figuring out what my work looks like. He mentioned about my drone photography and said that some of my work was medical/surgical in that I’m looking at objects from a different angle and documenting the object from all angles. I likened it to an engineering drawing or model of a component. I guess I’ll just keep taking photos and reflecting on why I’m taking the photos I do.
After the hang was finished at around 5pm we all moved back the furniture from the Bessant Gallery into the foyer and tidied up with the final view of the work ready to be opened tomorrow. The poster with the names on was hanging to the left of the exhibition too so that people would know which level it was that had produced the work.
My work?
Well, I’m happy with it as a piece of work that fits into this interim exhibition but it’s a bit small. The 16:9 aspect ratio of the print joins another two similar and it was said that this made them look cinematic. Mine is this ratio because I forgot to set my drone to 4:3 so it means that there is a hefty bit of the possible picture cropped in the drone. If I’d left it as 4:3, I would have many more pixels and a possibility of printing it at a larger scale. There’s no use crying though. I was happy with the Titanium Lustre paper as it really shows up the metallic nature of the windows and the films with the colours, and also the unglazed frame that my work was mounted in. It really worked well and the more I see it compared to the floating frames, the more I like it. The floating frames seem to have a propensity to curl up on the corners or be really easy to ding on an edge of the print.
The layout of the pictures was moved around by four or five different people, and with each person their tastes changed what they felt. I had no problems with any of the layouts but I could see that some people were trying to stop being too dark in the centre of the wall and some people wanted to balance the sizes of the images across the whole wall. Others were talking about lines and patterns or shapes that worked with a few images being grouped together too. I really do think it is all subjective but the tutors and course leaders know what they’re talking about and worked out a good plan that, although changed a little at the end, worked out really well.
I’m really grateful to them for their expertise and the apparent ease with which they were able to work out the numbers for the marking out of the holes to be drilled.
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