Year 2 Curating 05: Observing Exhibitions

I went out yesterday expecting to get some curating idea from an exhibition and to change a place for a new vision. It was the last day of the show at CCA, What we caught we threw away, what we didn't catch we kept, by Mariana Castillo Deball. I looked at the curating approach in particular.

  

At front, it's the space of two art pieces with the warm light atmosphere of doubt. I hadn't been able to figure out in that space. Until I walked through to the main space where the clear roof opened for the natural light, all the curiosity was resolved here. Perhaps the light was the matter of sense. More moulds of trees lied down, while the casted plasters were on the metal shelves. There were some photographs showing the casting process and the place it happened. The connection between each piece and of what they were suddenly revealed. The only addition apart from the art pieces were the metal stands which historically involved with the artist's reference, and the plinths which were already familiar in the exhibition context. A separated room or a "secret room", I like to call it like that as I explained the rationale in the entry of this exhibition, contained a number of pieces of the opposite process of documenting the ancient. The only one object here, surrounded by its imprint on the cotton paper, was at the central position as if it had become the world where there were the satellites orbiting. From this view of the installation, I could deduce what was happening between the prints and the object. Rather than being the moulds wrapped around the miniature like the pieces in the main room, the sheets on the wall must be bared flat to be rolled on by the dimensional. The curating way was really understandable for me.

  

I got an idea that if my curating event is more like an Open Day than an exhibition, I like to combine it with when I made use of the studio's assets, such as the tables, a pinned board, stools and wooden boards, as I explained in the previous entry Year 2 Curating 04, and avoid to use other unnecessarily exotic additions as in the exhibition.

   

Some thoughts I have been thinking of:

- the physical pieces should be able to stand by themselves or rely on the studio's interior

- the studio's "secret room" is now for the pieces that need to be shown in the dark, so all the similar aspect should be organised there

- the front space should be able to intrigue the viewers at first glance, and try adjusting the lights

- look for the prominent part of the interior (maybe the main pillar) and a resolved piece that relates to the rest

 - keep the theme "open" to make more sense the digital process behind the screen

What we caught we threw away, what we didn't catch we kept by Mariana Castillo Deball

CCA
Saturday 6 April - Saturday 18 May 2013
Visited on Saturday 18 May 2013 
     
The moulds of the trees and other artefacts are casted from the original objects in Mexico City, Oaxaca, Berlin, Scotland and Costa Rica, as the artist is inspired by Alfred Maudslay, a British explorer, who travelled to Guatemala and Maya region and developed the technique of paper squeezes, moulds made out of papier-mâché. There is a story, involving with the history of the ancient cities, running through all the pieces, which is written by the artist and provided as a booklet to form a better understanding of the past that some people may never experience.
 

in the front space

   
For this time visiting, I'm more interested in curating as I'm currently organising the studio space for the Open Day event. In the front room by the entrance, there are a tree mould and a hunting net, perhaps, made of ramie. The net, on a low white plinth, confronts the door, the mould lies down itself occupying the inner space. If I didn't see the exhibition's poster, I might not know what the mould belonged to. Though I'm in doubt what these two are communicating, without text stating beside, the warm light atmosphere invites me to find out in the next chapter. (I know later that the net is used to bind the pieces when they were transported to the Centre for African Art in New York.) The front pieces then should form the start of the narrative.
 

main space view 01

  

main space view 02

  

main space view 03

 
In the main gallery space, apart from the moulds casted from the tress by paper, there are also the pieces of plaster casted out of the ancient hieroglyphic. The plaster are put on the metal stands to just like when Maudslay's casts and moulds are collected at the British Museum's storage. The stands then are not the exotic additions and perfectly make sense. The documenting photographs are also on the metals to show the process and places of casting. Without the brochure, these images have become the clue for the viewers to form the connection of the pieces. All the pieces in this room are casted out and most tree moulds lie on the floor.
 

secret room view 01

   

secret room view 02

In a "secret room" (recently I have been thinking of many galleries I have been to are likely to have a separated room. In this space, the "key" piece is usually put in. When I got into the secret room, it's like if I could understand the pieces here, I would be able to read the others. Eventually I was. Though there is not an appropriate room due to the building structure, there has to be a prominent part of that space, like the front window shelf in the Studio 41 that I wrote about "Suspended Animations" exhibition.), there are the sheets of cotton paper stretched around the wall. This is very obviously different from the stems' shapes in the room I have just left. They are completely flat and smooth. Rather than being used to cast the originals, the originals are used to record their texture on. There is a miniature size of the monumental sculpture in Maya showing on a white plinth at the centre of the room. I think probably this miniature was applied some type of liquid and rolled to cause the imprint on the paper. Because if the subtle sheets look neat, they must not be wrapped around anything to cause those prints. It must be something travelling on. The only possibility I can guess is the only one sculpture in the space surrounded by the imprint. A shame that I would have definitely been sure if I tried to match up some parts of the prints with the object's texture.

Clearly this time the "secret room" is used to separate the opposite process of casting, and the only exotic addition to stand the pieces are the metal stands. It gives me some idea the way I should manage the studio for the event.

Cameron Sinclair

Born in South East London, 1973

While training as an architect in mid 1990s at The University of Westminster and The Barlett School of Architecture, University College London, Sinclair was always interested in responsible design and how it can make impact as a whole. His thesis on housing for the homeless was a black sheep among his fellow students at the time.

Having laid off from his job as a project architect at Gensler, Sinclair dedicated himself full time to found a website with Kate Stohr to call for architects and designers around the world to get involve in the humanitarian projects. They started with a budget of $700 to hold a competition to design transitional housing for refugees returning to Kosovo. Though the first start was failed, two and a half years later in 2002 they opened another competition for mobile medical clinics for HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. With the positive responses, a number of prototypes were built and they started to develop the project in sub-Saharan. From a simple website, Architecture for Humanity has become an international center of innovative solutions for housing and living problems. The nonprofit organization’s works range from school, health clinics, housing and long-term reconstruction in many countries over the world. There were already a lot of groups and organizations aiming to relief housing deficiency, but what made Sinclair at the center of this global network is his persistence, his co-founder and wife who wrote press releases and grant proposals, and his real contribution via the website that have helped to stimulate a global dialog. Having started to heal some of the global living crisis at the very early age, naïve and failures are his worth learning curve. Sinclair does not just say he wants to make the world better, with strong motivation and endurance he has done it by building things.

Since there was a large amount of asking for help from disaster victims, in 2004 they started an open source model of business to allow local people report their local problems. This results in thousands of designers, connected by the website, working around the world. The open source network does not only contain of inventors and designers, but also the funding model. The founders took an action as a conduit between the design world and the humanitarian world. In 2012 Open Architecture Network merged with an open source blog Worldchanging to expand building mission along with sustainable innovative community, in which Sinclair also works as a regular contributor. Co-wrote with Stohr, a book Design Like You Give a Damn volume 1 released in 2006 and the second with the same title in 2012.

Awards

2009 Bicentenary Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for increasing people’s resourcefulness, jointly awarded with Stohr

2009 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum

2008 Artitecture for Humanity were named as recipients of the Design Patron Award

2006 Rave Award for Architecture, jointly with Stohr

2006 TED Prize

2005 RISD/Target Emerging Designer of the Year

 

Bibliography and References

Open-Source Goes Hammer and Nail by Jessie Scanlon, 15 March 2007

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-03-15/open-source-goes-hammer-and-nailbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

Cameron Sinclair: A call for open-source architecture, July 2006

http://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_sinclair_on_open_source_architecture.html

Designing for the Dispossessed by Alastair Gordon, 28 August 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/28/garden/designing-for-the-dispossessed.html
 
Note: The research is aimed to be a resource for my learning purpose only. It therefore contains many unedited information which I took from the references. I would like to maintain, rather than interpret it into my own words which may cause an inaccuracy later on, as much as it can form my appropriate understanding.

Year 2 Curating 04: Nice Combination

I have found myself enjoy positioning these wooden boards. Each of them is really heavy and anytime I get on with them, I'm home exhausted. I like holding them, changing, playing jigsaw. Even just changing a corner or angle can trigger some idea. Today I add 2 stools into play to create a different step. I feel like this is a playground.
 

  

    

I always want to make use of the space structure and of what we have as much as I can - the window shelves, ceiling, corner, pillar, wooden boards, stools, tables etc. Perhaps I feel to the site-specific installation which creates a meaning between the pieces and a particular place. This is challenging from a curating point of view.
 
Since we have cleared out most tables and kept them together in a corner, we have been waiting for the students on the other side of the building to finish the year, so that we can move these tables there. But at some point I see the structure from the side when they are standing together. I then want to see a big black pin board, which is considered to be disposed of, on them.
 
We move some tables into a space.
 

  

 Put the big board on them.
 

 
We also want to see whether just 2 tables can look less stifling, and my colleague, Alex, thinks it could look better.
 

 
It does. But I still want them to be collective because this is what the initial idea is generated - to make use of the in hand materials in a way that can allow a different meaning. With 2 tables forming a stand for the big board, for me they together look too intended to become a new table. If we already have so many tables, what's the point for a new one? With the collective tables, they altogether don't mean to become a new table and they can articulate to the viewers why they are together regarding the aspects of the studio that is cleared to become an exhibition-like. It is somehow meaningful.
 
We try putting some sketchbooks on as we suppose this new black board space to be a house for showing our sketchbooks. I like this idea that we can find a place for the sketchbooks as we have been looking for, meanwhile we don't have to get rid of the tables but make use of.
   

Alex likes it to look neat, both the tables' facets, and wants to paint the black board. But I do like their real adventures - the state of what they really are. The black board has been pinned and stapled over time - this is a happening, it's been used in its own way. After all we reach to what we both want at some point. Alex grabs some sketchbooks and puts them on nicely and tidily, while I take care on the others spontaneously.
 
Nice combination.
 

 

 
My colleague fits the table legs neatly as a neat person he is. Things end up the way they are intended to be if we have no objection with each other's idea. But if so, there will still be a space of negotiation. Look at the above picture, every mechanical grey joint is turned to talk to each other. With the table legs, they are slotted in altogether... somehow.
 

Year 2 Curating 03

We manage to get the t-shirt hung. The key is an accuracy of the threads' tension, and the parallel.

  

Each paper clip should pinch the ceiling and the thread on the most tight spot. It requires two persons - one to stretch the thread and pinch; the other helps holding the t-shirt. 4 clips are used.

   

   

   

 
I use this jumper wire to pierce the t-shirt to insert the threads. Any other similar things can be used if you don't have a needle.
 

On the side of the t-shirt, I wrap the threads with the wire clips before secure them by the white tack.