Make space 5 - Economy

Brief:

The economy project is a short-based idea and project that as a class we will all individually and as a team respond in the them ‘The Economy’ in a way that seems appropriate to our eyes and a way that links to the economy.

The task is to create photographic images that means something today with economy and it has to be a series of images to show this also.

With the word economy there’s a lot of verity of choice within the project as you can address issues in around the world, Europe, Uk or yourself. The choices that link into this project are endless as of the number of things that surround the subject economy, the biggest one and most recently being Brexit as a lot of people are going to be affected by this within the UK.

Ideas:

After brain storming and thinking of themes and ideas based on the economy as you can see I created a mind map. After creating the mind map I decide to go down the route of the technology> phones> phones boxes. The reason I chose this is because it shows how insignificant something has become in our time now when it was one of the most important things for people at the time, as poor and middle classed people couldn’t afford phones in here houses at the time so to communicate these where on roads and streets, all these do know is fund the economy through tourism which is a big part of the Uk and the economy fund to keep it running. Around £500 million[1] is generated by tourism to help the economy work and keep it balanced, and I feel part of that sum is held now by the phone boxes as they are rather only kept in London and nowhere else, and to this there all mainly the old 1st designed phones boxes rather than the new, dull, grey looking BT ones which are around the rest of the UK.

Shoot:

I was in London to take these images so I took images of phone boxes but also interesting architecture from the barbarian.

Groups:

After a couple of weeks after being given the brief for this economy project we got told to speak in a lecture as a group and also decided in what groups we would like to be in the do work for the upcoming exhibition that we would be designing creating and making as a co-hourt together. The groups of choice we had where Curation, design, promotion. What each group consisted of was:

Promotion: To advertise, campaign and raise funds for the exhibition so we have attraction and attention and money to use to create the exhibition all together.

Design: To create the posters, video’s, book’s, logo and too keep the theme within trend so that it links and works well with the brief and the area around that we are trying to reach out to.

Curation: More hands on creating the floor plan, setting up, planning the work space, health and safety, risk assessments, buying and find resources to use for the exhibition, giving out information to the people displaying.

After being told these jobs we got asked around the class to say and pick which one we wanted to work in and as soon as it came to me I chose curation as I felt comfortable using power tools and getting down to work and create something physical that would be used by everyone. After the whole class decided to what areas they wanted to go in we went into our smaller groups and spoke and decided on who should be the team leader of that group and after some thinking I put myself forward as curation leader for the group. Within our group there was a good mix of genders as there was 5 of us (2/3 ratio).

The 1st thing that I did after being placed and agreed as curation speaker, I thought ill create a group chat via Facebook so that we can communicate outside of PCA and also a team drive on google drive so that any plans, work, images, ideas could be dropped into the drive.

I also created a time plan on spread sheets onto the drive so that the group can fill in things that they have done and contributed into the exhibition so that they can relay back to the class and possibly incase if they forget to what they did.

On this day also before we went we decided to create a fund and all say that everyone had to chip in £10 into the kitty as then that would give us a total of £200 to use for the exhibition and cover expenses on paint, nails, food and other things. To not have any confusion who paid or not we decided to create a list to sign people in that have payed or not. I decided to offer people that payed to receive a clear vinyl print of text with there work as it would be fair people that paid received this form the fund made by everyone and sadly isolate the people that didn’t pay as there was no help nor support from them in the money or help side if this was the case, we did say if there was a honest and concerning issue to speak to someone from the leaders of the groups or to the lectures so that there would be no issues.

Curation:

So, after planning and creating the group chat and team drive, and accepting me as the curation leader we got to work the following day creating and thinking about the space and design the floor plan and space its self on the 18/04/2018:

The 1st floor plan is the one that we would be using and the space that we would be given, there was a couple things we noticed with the space and that was the sink in the diagram wasn’t in the correct place, so this would need to be moved.

On the 2nd floor plan I design adding the design that we would be laying out and also a key for understating of things in and around the work space, so that you see the access ability. We decided as a group to add a centre piece also so as we were using boards we decided to have a centre piece that could hold its self-up.

After more discussion there was too many boards on the right side (in front of the sink) so that got slightly moved around.

We decided to add 2 tables to the exhibition as one would be for greeting and for food and snacks and the other would be for selling smaller post cards and work.

We miss counted the amount of boards that we needed for a persona and need more room so I added another centre piece into the design.

After thought my group designed to make the shape bigger for the centre piece and still keep 1 in the centre.

The constantia by the sinks got re-modelled once again.

I placed people into the columns and areas, the sizing wasn’t accurate as this was a rough draft to let the rest of the class just see what area and board they would have in the space roughly.

On set up day we found out that we didn’t need so much space in the centre, so we downsized the centre piece back to 6 people, we got rid of the selling table as no one was selling nor displaying work, we didn’t need a big centre piece as more boards where used by the sink and also a constantia got created a the far back and the only flat wall we had was on the left side of the exhibition. This is what we used for the final design and set up of the whole exhibition.

Diary:

On the 21/04/2018 I went on my own to wilko to analyse and look at what they had to see if they had all the equipment we needed to and for this exhibition such as paint, brushes and other products.

On the 23/04/2018 I and another member of the team went to the space our exhibition was going to be and we re-measured the space to make sure we have received the correct specs and sizes in the space. I also created an information sheet for everyone based on all the work rules we were going to have and what kind of theme inside we are using so that the design team could possibly stick on having a logo at that theme, I also created an information sheet to my group so that they understood what has been done so far, at the moment no a lot has been done as only the progress form my group is the floor design, but with curation all you can do is slowly prepare yourself for the day of setting up.

Then on the 24/04/2018 I gave out small jobs and tasks to the group so that we as a group can do something rather than have 1 person do all the work as this is where it was heading so far as no one asked for help or things to do, but at times this was asked and when I got asked I happily found a task that was needed to be filled in and created within the curation role. On this day I also carried and now officially allocated the students around the floor plan in official order, this order was chosen and discussed as a whole co-hourt and not just the curation group. On this day I also handed out information sheets students to read and know what they could do and not, and I also handed out health and safety forums to be given back to me so that I knew of any medical issues, and to this I also asked people for print sizes. The reason I did this is because if I pushed people to think about there print sizes this created them to already start thinking about the display of the work which means they will be more prepared on the day than leaving it to the last second and confusing everyone.

On 25/04/2018 I spoke to Steph and Thom from the SU about the bar, which I later found out we weren’t allowed to have as not saying nor letting the health and safety department know about that there will be alcohol present at the space. I also contact Candis from the 2nd year to speak to her if they would like to use my floor design as I found out they were using the space after us, she and the rest of her year agreed on this and used my floor design and space.

Then on the 26/04/2018 I went to the print lab in PCA to find out prices about the clear vinyl and found out each roll was 50” in length but the width was what affected the pricing as 25cm was £16, 50cm was £25, 100cm was £50. So, it seemed that the starting roll was more expensive and to save money I would use the 50cm width, I also found out that the turn over time was 2 days on the prints.

I emailed the lectures on 27/04/2018 to confirm the opening and closing times and over a couple of back and forth emails we decided on the 9th May 12-6pm 10th May 11-4pm to open the exhibition to the public, to later hear that the 2nd years clashed times with our exhibition on the 28/04/2018, so what I did was send a fast message to Candis from the 2nd year on Facebook to get a faster response about how we could fix the situation and problem that was just created, then after talking we decided to share out the times to 9th 12.00-6 and the 10th 10am-2pm as then they didn’t clash with the 2nd years. Informed also the whole of the co-hourt to come and help on the 4th of May to move the boards to make space 5.

29/04/2018 I went and bought some white tack for the posters to be stuck up and held, I also grabbed some posters off the promotion team and placed them around Plymouth to give a helping hand as this would seem fair that I helped out them when they were going to help us in the curation set up further on, I also decided to remove the stress and time for design team to on designing and making a blurb that was going to be needed to be printed, so I decided them by helping by asking the whole co-hourt to have blurbs uploaded and finished by a certain date so that I could get them designed and printing, I did this so that I helped in there team so that when it comes to set up day they will happily help as I did some tasks for them.

Then on the 01/05/2018 I went with another colleague to speak to wood work, our photography technicians about the boards we would need to use and also the hammers, screws, paint and drillers to have to work with so that we could have tools to use at the job. After talking we found out that from wood work the only things we could get were hammers, drills and equipment but the paint could not be funded nor the nails or brushes, so to save time of looking around we added this to the list to buy at the shop when going shopping for things. We also got informed the boards were going to be 8 feet x 4 feet. Around this date also the desing team creted, relased and finshed a sneak peak trailer for our exhbtion.

After a group meeting on 01/05/2018 with the curation, we all decided and agreed that 02/05/2018 at 11am we were going to meet up so that we could all go shopping and buy the things needed but from people agreeing to this only 2 of us ended up going, what wasn’t useful was that the messages I received where around 10mins before we had to meet up so this was at the very last second. We had to buy 5Lx2 and paint brushes with poles and paint trays, tape, bleach, gloves, wipes, nails, cups, food platters. And walking with two people only we did it but our hands where very full and it was an awkward walk to what could have been made simpler by having more people helping, the good thing about having only 2 of us we made fast and easy decisions on issues rather than having to debate and think of issues.

On the 03/05/2018 I told and said to everyone that this was the acetate clear vinyl deadline print, so what I did was used the blurb writing from people and their names, to be printed, I gave the design print over to the print lab at the size of the 52” roll at the width of 50cm, but I forgot to down size the writing and fit 2 sets of texts on rather than having one, so form these looking A5 sizes these prints were now around A3 size and were very visible on the wall text wise.

On the 04/05/2018 I collected the prints that I made for my work, and I also got told I could take the vinyl prints as they were finished, so what I did was cut them out and arrange them to a clean and appropriate size rather than keeping them in a long roll. After doing the prints I went down to meet everyone from the group from curation and the rest of the co-hourt to only find out my group and 3 other people turned up making a group of 8 out of 20 which was a slight disappointment, but it took us about 1 hour and 30mins to move all the boards across from the warehouse to make space, and in this time I also got part of the group painting boards, and in that time we also moved holding frames for the boards out of the erc to make space 5 within that hour and half, and when we finished in that time we got 10 boards already pre painted and done, so we only need to paint another 12 to be finished. On the retouching of the boards.

My Final images

Set up day

Not much was done until the 08/05/2018 which was set up day and I personally went in at 8am to start setting up and painting extra boards to jump the rest of the group so that we could have enough time to set up, I also for this day created a tameable to roughly have and stick to and by:

Having this small timetable for myself set me a goal to have things done on time and efficiently and fast as possibly my plan was to be finished on the day at 5pm, but I got told we needed to finish at 4pm meaning we were going to have to work faster and cut some things to speed up the process, and to do this and make the process faster I decide to add the constantia at the back as it was much faster to set up than a straight flat wall.

With the whole progress within the day there was a lot of stress and silence from me I would say so part of the process it being silent was because of me but it was also the fact that no one asked to help as they all sat around waiting for me to point the figure whilst I was doing things and helping around. A lot of people walked out and didn’t contribute in helping within the set up of the exhibition as they thought they did their job and didn’t need help, but with the curation group setting up a space within 6 hours is doable but not with 5 people as there was too much to be done were jobs needed 3 people to help support the work. Part of the group needed to go to print the catalogue as they failed to create and do this before the exhibition set up day, and I feel this was used as a scape goat on the day off for them as apparently they had issues printing around the whole of Plymouth and ended up finishing printing at the end of the day when we finished, which is frustrating as it took 4 people to print a catalogue and we got informed that there was going to be 2-3 of these but we only received one print of the final catalogue. I feel as this could have been an issue but it didn’t need to take 4 people to resolve and sort out this just to print some pages, we got told the paper was going to be a professional print but it got printed on a simple and cheap paper also. Then when we needed to go buy more things for the exhibition such as hook screws, the money box that we agreed to keep in pca was taken half way across pca which a pain was to go collect it and then go to the shop wasting time form working on the exhibition.

Created by the design team

But starting from the beginning of the day what I started off with was painting the remaining 12 boards, which took around 1 hour to paint them all when everyone started helping, so we put the heating on so they good dry faster, the had to be left on the ground as if we propped them on the wall they would start to warp, so this was a waiting game, something that I noticed at this point it was the boards weren’t 8 foot rather 7 foot as it wasn’t that much bigger than me height wise, but I didn’t mind at this point as these are the ones we moved, grabbed and painted so this is what we were working with, but personally they looked better at this height as not everyone was using the board spacing anyway.

When the boards where drying after being painted I knew there was a few things left in make space so they needed to be moved so as a team whilst the boards dried we moved all the objects out and placed them into the warehouse.

After moving all the objects, I understood and knew people have ordered prints from the print lab so I allowed a time gap for them to go collect and cut their work up as I had to do this myself. But because the painting took slightly longer to set up and sort we where around 30mins behind on track, so what I decided to do is let everyone go to lunch at 12.30-13.30 so that they still got 1-hour lunch but I moved it by 30mins.

I asked everyone to come back for the last at 12 to make space so that I could address what things where going to be done and needed to be done, but by this point not everyone turned up, and after lunch there was almost to no people there except my curation group.

Clips that hold the constantia togetherAfter some persuasion and emails people came back to help and we started setting up all the boards around, we had not too many issues with the constantia it looked like, but with the straight wall it came with some problems and issues, but the plan carried on. What I did was split the group into 2 and one group did the right side of the room making the constantia at this point, and the rest of the group set up the straight wall.

The straight wall supportsI had no input on helping the constantia help, but I saw it go up without any issues. But with the setup of the straight wall on the left side we spent around 1-hour 30mins setting up 2 boards, as it was hard to keep them straight and not moving, so the plan was to bind them together using screws and blocks of wood, then also putting screw hooks and string to hold the boards in place so that they didn’t topple over, we also used the supports every 2 boards so that it would support and hold them up securely. What I did to help was cut out and saw chunks of wood for binding the boards together, I also had to buy screw hooks, string and also gum tape as this would cover up any gaps in between the walls. (I spent around 40mins tracking down the money tin to have money access) After finding that I bought the things and also came back to only have around 4 boards up, the reason for this was that the power drill gave up and stopped working and the walls needed support as they couldn’t stand on the own. As soon as we put the screw hooks and sting on they held the boards really well. Whilst the constantia and boards where being also set up on the straight wall we were placing gum tape over the seems so that it looked a lot cleaner and more professional, so me and another friend were placing the gum tape and allowed them to dry so we could paint over them to blend I well with the wall.Gum tape finish 

They way it looked and seemed there wasn’t enough boards so I told 5 people to come with me and to grab another 3 boards to be painted and set up, which later on we found out that we didn’t even need as we had the correct amount in the first place.

After doing 5 boards on the straight wall and looking around the people that made the constantia fished almost 1 hour ago and they started repainting and retouching the boards off and scuffs made, so at this point I thought to save time we place a constantia at the back also and just keep the wall straight only on the left side, so I asked the other group can the set up the constantia at the back also, whilst they did this we finished off the final 2 boards to be set up to finish the left side. After another hour we had the left side, back and right side all set up so we weren’t doing to bad for timing as it was 15.45 so I thought to just set up 6 boards in the centre wouldn’t take too long, but when setting up hexagon we found out that the clips undid when we tried to move them together and join them, it was also hard to moved the boards when they where being joined up so the plan was to hold and set them up in place and then clip them on, this took us until only 16.10 which only happened so fast as we had a group of around 12 helping on this 1 thing which just speeded up the process.

With even these issues we ended up finishing the set up of the exhibition at 4.15pm and the next day the plan was to be come in at 10am and set up work as that what was all that was needed to set up, this was left to the choice of the person to their board but they had to stay within there board, I also set up the lights on the back constantia to lighten the darker area so that work was much more visible. After setting up lighting and looking a better idea would have been having it above every work set done by people as it moved the aesthetic of the image that much more.

End of the dayOn the 09/05/2018 and 10/05/2018 the exhibition was open to public and I created a rota for the students of the co-hourt to come in and do a 30mins shift to over look the space so they did something within this project, giving people a chance to contribute, I decided so that there was no mistakes or issues I overlook and stayed throughout all the hours on both days, I also told people to sign in on a sheet so that I could show who turned up and who didn’t, out of the class only 2 people didn’t turn up so the outcome and turn up was very successful I would say form the group. As for me being there both days I counted the amount of people that came in and looked around and we had a rough amount of around 60 people over both days which isn’t bad for a 1st try exhibition that only lasted a day and half.Back of the space, light displayed where all like this at the back

Before we opened on the 9th I met around 10am with my curation team member and we went shopping for snacks and drinks around the corner in Sainsburys and bought biscuits, orange juice, apple juice, shloer grape, elderflower, table cloth also to make it look that more presentable.

Exhibition images:Entrance view

Left side of exhibitionBack of exhibition spaceRight side of the exhibitionCenter piece and my workkey points after leaving the exhibition:

• paint was left on the floor after handing over the space to the 2nd years, and the boards where by someone roped and tied to the heating rails without me knowing or noticing this is a health and safety risk.
• There wasn't so many people form the 1st years on time cleaning up the workspace.... didn't help we had all the 2nd years come in and flooded the space making us squished for room in the exhibition slowing down the whole process.
• I would say that possibly give people more time in the exhibition to turn up and do a longer shift as to have more experience in the exhibition and leave more trust on people possibly rather than me being there both days from opening to closing.

Improvements:

1. I would spread the load and trust around the whole of the curation group rather than trying to for it all on my own.
2. Discuss much more thoroughly about the space and how it should be displayed and spend more time next time
3. Allow people to check my work and writing through as of punctuation and spelling.
4. To clean up the work space after using it.... and possibly make note of what was there already 
5. Check next time also the structure of everything on how its been build and the set up rather than trusting it to stay up.
6. Give more time for people to display and think about there work on set up day
7. Also to possibly have a rule on how work should all be displayed to keep all the work smooth and uniform though out the whole exhibition.

_{[1] Kennedy, T. (2018). UK Tourism facts and figures. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/tourism/8587231/UK-Tourism-facts-and-figures.html [Accessed 18 May 2018].}