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Week 5: Development of the Presentation - my description of the Interpretative Strategy [1]

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Week 5: Development of the Presentation - my description of the Interpretative Strategy [1]

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----------------------------- W E E K 1 -----------------------------
Thu 29/09/16         h 3-4         Handling Session
----------------------------- W E E K 2 -----------------------------
Wed 05/10/16         h 2-4        Marketing Session + List of Objects
----------------------------- W E E K 3 -----------------------------
Tue 11/10/16           h 9          Marketing Image + E-News/Website
Thu 13/10/16                          Labels and Panel
Fri 14/10/16             h 5          Poster Design
----------------------------- W E E K 4 -----------------------------
Wed 19/10/16                         Labels and Panel (Feedback)
----------------------------- W E E K 5 -----------------------------
Mon 24/10/16         h 10-4     Installation

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Week 5: Development of the Presentation - my description of the Interpretative Strategy [2]

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Week 5: Development of the Presentation - my description of the Interpretative Strategy [2]

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To develop an effective strategy, firstly we decide to define our audience, focusing on the undergraduate students living and studying at the University of Leeds.

This selection immediately raised two questions related to our engagement strategy:

firstly, why a student who is not interested in art should come to our exhibition?

and secondly, do students really notice the series of sculptures around what is such a familiar space for them?

Starting from these questions we developed our visitor engagement strategy which revolves around two elements that we tried to link strongly to each other:

the use of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery collections

the student interviews, through the audio visual element

We used these two key points to help us introduce our storyline which unfolds on the two walls of the Education room. These elements are meant as tools for an active and meaningful engagement: moving from the preliminary sketches and maquettes inside the gallery, the visitors are lead to the public sculptures on the outside, on campus.

This re-introductory step through the gallery space is seen by us as an encouragement toward further explorations and different ways of understanding spaces and objects that we walk pass everyday and which are familiar to us.

Our display method is the way we used to achieve a relevant, appealing and accessible interpretation, using both nearby and unexpected materials, like preliminary works of the artists, but also pieces of text like Dr. Strickson's poem and various pieces of personal stories which we think were well delivered by the different names people use for the sculptures on campus and student interviews in the video recording.

All these elements are intended to draw just one of the many possible connections between personal experiences and the wider student community, in what we liked to call 'the secret life of sculpture'.

So the real key to our interpretative strategy is in the visitors meaning-making and curiosity, which we tried to keep central in our idea as in our final display.

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How does my experience of undertaking Interpreting Cultures action learning project illuminate the political and ethical responsibilities of those working in art galleries, museums and heritage institutions?

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How does my experience of undertaking Interpreting Cultures action learning project illuminate the political and ethical responsibilities of those working in art galleries, museums and heritage institutions?

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Week 5: What did you learn from seeing your project through someone else's eyes?

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Week 5: What did you learn from seeing your project through someone else's eyes?

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I had the opportunity to talk about the exhibition's display and some of the issues raised by it with Libo Zhu, one of my peers during the Interpreting Culture course.
I decided to focus our discussion on four main elements:

1. The image of the exhibition delivered by marketing and communication strategy and its similarities and differences with the actual display;

2. The use of selected interviews to represent the ideas of a wider group of the students of the University of Leeds;

3. The critical elements of reflection offered by the stories of some artworks, picturing the contrast between the artist's vision and their patrons;

4. The effectiveness of the display and the balance between its elements;

These questions showed the strongest elements of the exhibition and inevitably its flaws as well.

Firstly, the marketing strategy appeared to be supported by the existence of the “Public Art Trail”, an University initiative which aims to introduce the public sculpture on campus through a guided tour. I suggested that then the exhibition could be the natural continuation of that project, but in my peer's opinion it had an additional strength in the title and poster design. Those elements made the exhibition appear to her “more intriguing and they shed a new light on the sculptures' stories”. Using strong words like 'community' and referring to a 'secret life' of the sculptures on campus, created an expectation which made her wanting not only to see the exhibition, but also to participate to the “Public Art Trail”.

Secondly, the selection we made of the interviews apparently didn't constitute a problem in her perspective. When I tried to suggest that hypothetically we could have deleted interviews of people with opinions conflicting with our 'big idea' for the exhibition, she agreed that this could actually raise at least some questions. But she also said that because “not all the students pay attention to the sculpture”' our editing was necessary to leave out all the not educated or not knowledgeable opinions.

Thirdly, the contrast between artists and patrons was not central enough in the display to be considered as a theme in it, so she found honestly “hard to answer” to the question.

This last answer revealed to be strongly linked the previous one, showing what has been described as the major issue through the entire exhibition: the written part of labels and introductory panel “felt weak and less interesting”, especially when compared to the visual content of photographs and video.

This peer-to-peer discussion didn't just give me an insight on my project, but made me think of new possible questions, regarding both the single exhibition and its broader context:
how the use of marketing and design could create new interest in something which already exists?
How our culture of preselected content made us less critical in regard of how the sources are produced and by who?
How our visual framework make us difficult to rethink the elements in written form?
Ultimately, is the gallery space and its relationship with visitors creating new challenges in the ways of curating?

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As an example of positive learning experience, Alexander told me of when he did a teacher training course to gain the CELTA certificate in English language.

Despite his young age - he was only 19 - he had to teach English to adults, learning how to engage with students and how to tailor lessons to fit their specific needs, within an intensive work environment.
This challenging responsibility helped him develop professionally, changing his way of organizing his own work and paying more attention to details.

My peer judged this as a positive learning experience beyond the fact of getting a teaching qualification, but because it affected his personal development and, in his own words "made him feel more mature".

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Week 4: 'Like Blows of Scissors', by Dr. Strickson

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Week 4: 'Like Blows of Scissors', by Dr. Strickson

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The different displays

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Creating Communities: The Secret Life of Sculpture

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Three different versions

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Week 3: Photographs of th Artwork for the Exhibition

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Week 3: Photographs of th Artwork for the Exhibition

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Week 3: Audiences and Writing Creatively 

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Week 3: Audiences and Writing Creatively 

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Label draft written using the Ekarv method

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1) How does this/public sculpture make you feel?

2) Do you feel like you engage with the sculptures?

3) Do you feel that sculptures on campus create community?

4) Do you feel inspired by these sculptures? How so?

5) Is public sculpture important?

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'Public Art, Public Housing, and Community'
by Amy L. Howard

'Public Art: An Essential Component of Creating Communities'
by Jack Becker

'The Community Is Watching, and Replying: Art in Public Places and Spaces'
by Anne Bray

'Art spaces, public space, and the link to community development'
by Carl Grodach

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Public Sculpture Connects Students and Builds Community

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Week 1: Introductions, Approaches and Key Ideas

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Week 1: Introductions, Approaches and Key Ideas

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Handling session