Some more feedback sheets collect from the hub yesterday (unit 2 part E)

Reviewing the project - (unit two part E)

Reviewing the project

The thing I benefited most from on this project was the interaction with the children from a deprived area. I gained experience working with children who would not normally get the chance of working with artists.  The children showed enthusiasm toward learning something new, which to be such a part of I felt was good.  

The challenge of creating a public piece for the council was something I had never done but was keen to do.  The challenge in getting the other members of the team organised was a massive test to my commitment to the project. I felt like if I had not kept the others motivated the project would not have been completed in time. I felt extremely capable and now have more confidence in leading other projects like this after taking the lead on this particular project.

The most challenging thing about the project was having a lot of the work to be done left to myself.  It felt like I had the work of three people to do myself. My organisational skills came into place where I had to direct the other team member in what to do. I felt there leadership lacked due to other commitments and not as much energy towards the project like myself. I also felt that being the older member of the group the others were looking up to me to tell them what to do.  I did like the fact that I had other members of the team to help with decisions and ideas. I would conclude that having other members of the team really did help when taking the children out into public spaces. This helped with having one on one experiences with the children to help them take photographs as well the health and safety factors.

What have I learnt about leadership? 

Leadership is a hard skill to learn and I think comes with experience. In this particular project, I think I had to become the overall leader to get the others to be managing their own roles. I felt if I had not done this the project would not have been a success like it was.

On looking back on what makes a good leader from the beginning of my training, the following role descriptions from Belbin’s Team Roles were given to me by the group after undertaking a team activity:

·         Shaper – dynamic and thrives under pressure jumps hurdles with determination,

·         Implementer- reliable and efficient,

·         Team worker- good listener and good co-operator and   

·         Completer – finisher – an eye for details and spots errors.

These I feel fit with the role I developed and demonstrated in this particular project.   

What have I learnt about communication?

Communication is very important in leadership and working in a team, this project would have failed if we did not communicate effectively. I realized I had to get in contact with people from Ibbison Court, Blackpool Council, the other artists and other people as part of my role.  None effective communication would have let the project down.

The group mainly communicated verbally via meetings that were arranged to organise what was going to happen next. I also telephoned and emailed Angie Buss to organise the workshops at Ibbison Court. I am used to sending emails to organise meetings and getting in contact with people so I felt at ease with this method.  I found it harder to talk to people face to face that I wasn’t familiar with rather than talking on the phone.

Doing this course has made me more confident in talking to official people to organise events like the Culture Shop. I would like to develop more contact with official people to gain more confidence in myself. I developed different skills in talking to people as I had to change the way I spoke to people of different ages and in different positions. I would talk to Clancy who was the Arts Engagement Officer for Blackpool Council Arts Service using a more official style and then change my language to a more relaxed tone with less complicated language to speak to the children at Revoe. I enjoyed talking to the children and showing them how to use the camera. I felt that they were learning from me and I was teaching them new skills which they could carry on using. 

What have I learnt about planning? 

Planning the project helped us to keep to task and gave us something to work to. Lesson planning the workshop helped us set a plan for the children and to have a back-up in case our first plan did not work. I realised that plans need reviewing more often than we did. I felt that we did not always follow the original plan and therefore they need to be updated more often.

I found that setting timescales and deadlines for tasks was vital for good planning for us to keep us focused, even if the entire group didn’t keep to the tasks given.  The timescale for this project was tight for us as a group so good planning was a key part to keeping us on target. I felt the planning process was very handy to help me keep to time even though the others did not really keep to this. However, the others not sticking to the plan had a massive impact for the team and the overall project as certain tasks did not get completed, for example the advertising.

We used different types of planning.  We had specific lesson plans that outlined our objectives we wanted the children to do and what we wanted out of the workshops to happen. I researched using lesson plans from a trainee teacher I know to help me get the idea of planning a workshop. This helped us to deliver the workshop to time and have objectives for each other and to try to be clear on what roles we were allocated, with the plan outlining this for us. The lesson plan shows all the activities we needed to get through. I sourced the resources for all the activities which were discussed between the team and written in the lesson plan. I also learnt how to network between different organisations talking to members of Blackpool Council, the other artists and to children from Revoe. Keeping to budget was pretty easy as we are all students and are used to working to a tight budget and not spending a lot of money. The downside for this I think materials could be chosen with better quality but on other hand the time scales affected getting better materials because we did not have the time to source them.

Overall allocation of tasks was decided at the meetings we held where each us had a role to do for next time we were due to meet.  This was not always an effective way because some members of this team did not always do their tasks and left other people to complete things, which mainly happened to be me. I felt I was the main task leader in this project as I feel I was always picking up the pieces.

The plan was not always followed and changing due to people not pulling their weight in their tasks. I felt I carried other people in this project because I knew we had a timescale to stick to. I felt I did more of the project than the others.  I think if we planned in more details on each of the tasks set in our smaller meetings maybe the others would have been more clear on what they were doing.  If I was to do the project again I would get everyone to agree and write down their own plan rather than leaving to myself to always organise, affectivity holding more accountability.  

What have I learnt about my art form? 

I learnt other skills which developed my own practise, for example I learnt how to do stereotype prints. What I found interesting was that the other girls did not realise they needed a laser printer in order for the image to work.

I think the presentation of the photographs could be better if we had more time to source better quality materials which were hardwearing. For example the heat of the hot summer affected the piece because it was in a window for 3 weeks. If we had used other better materials then this would have made the piece look more professional and look nicer in the window. The card may have looked a bit cheap and therefore sourcing another material could have improved the over-all look in my view.  The size of the photo cards were commented as being a bit small. We could have enlarged these postcards so they could be seen from across the road. This could have attractived people to come over and look in the window. This also could have made it easier for the public to view the piece.

There is always ways to improve when creating a piece of art work. This has been great for my development in art as I have taken on board the comments so if I was to create a similar piece I would take these things in to account.  Reviewing a piece art work yourself is hard because it becomes a personal piece so other peoples’ feedback is very helpful. I will use this method again knowing how it has helped me with my personal development.

 What I would do differently next time?

I would have reviewed our plans more often because things develop.  We would have been better updating our planning to fit with this. I think having a couple of back up plans ready to come into play would have helped us. One of our back up plans was to use a different workshop indoors if the weather was not good. This involved creating personal memories drawing and writing about the local area. The children would draw places like their house and the idea off the session which I created was to give them some help to think of local buildings or places they have some memories of. The weather wasn’t great but we still managed to go with our first option and to get out with the group take photographs.  We were then able to use the other workshop in week two. We probably should create better back up plans but again because the time was so limited this put everything under pressure. I think if we had more time other things may have happened to create a more improved piece. On the whole I think we did a good job in the time scales which we were left with.

I learnt that I can always learn new things from people.  For example allowing the children to play on the playground I did not think of the health and safety issues in the rain with the equipment being wet and the children being in our care. This all came from the experience of working with the children, which I would not have learnt without this experience.

I think the photography project went down very well in the area; we got great feedback from children and the leaders who said they pleased with the outcome. I personally think there were things we could improve on this photography project but I would use this again. I was overall happy with the project and really enjoy this project and leant a lot from doing it. 

I would have liked to have started earlier with the project - I would have felt better prepared. I did feel a bit rushed in part due to the lack of time we had. I think we could develop the project in the future and get more out it. We could run more classes with the children which I am sure they would have loved. Again I think if we had more time we would present the work in a different way. As mentioned above we could have had better quality materials and enlarged the images. I felt if the other artists did the allocated tasks in the project then it would help in the little time we had. I think they would learn more if they took responsibility in their role in the task and not left it to myself to pick up the pieces to finish the project.

Evaluation of the Culture Shop (unit 2 part E)

Evaluation of the Culture Shop – Memory Lane

The Artists  

The three artists involved in the project are Nikki Dolphin a Landscape and photograph artist and Elys Kent and Rebecca Daykin both of whom are mix media artists. The photographs were mainly taken by children aged 6 to 10 years old and some of leaders of the group that run the Art and Craft session in Ibboson court.

The original proposal to Blackpool Council had seven people participating in the workshop from the Gold Arts Award group; unfortunately a lot of the group had other commitments and therefore could not take part in the Culture Shop. This left the group with three-artists to run the workshop. Sadly, the original proposal was mainly designed by another member who was not in the last three which made keeping to the original proposal difficult. The original proposal of six workshops was a lot to do by three in the short amount of time we had. The proposal had two-elements one was jewellery making and the other local architecture. We had to cut the workshops down to three and keep to one of the original ideas, the local architecture. Involvement of the others could of potentially brought more to the project and enabled us to stick to the original plan. The workshops could have been run for longer giving the children more of range activities. The jewellery making was not something that between us we had any particular knowledge or skills in, making it unrealistic for us to offer this. 

As the project was left to three members I think overall the decision making was easier and also the co-ordination between us for running the small groups.  However, as mentioned above I do believe we would be able to run more workshops with more of range activities because there would have been more artists with more knowledge in different areas. When it came to producing the final project much of the planning and organisation was undertaken by myself.  If I had not taken on this role we potentially would not have finished the project to the target date. So whilst I imagine it was easier managing just the three of us rather than the original seven, it did result in less support and areas of expertise and ideas generated which could have improved the project further.   There was perhaps not an equal balance in delivery of the overall project and the distribution of tasks. This could be due to different age ranges and also the other two artists had on-going college commitments so did not have the capacity to put their all into the project. This I feel had an impact on the final piece of work produced.

Working with the young people I think was an interesting approach to this project. The project had a lot of energy to it and I believe this was because of the young children. They were excited about using the disposable cameras and the opportunity to go out and take photographs. I do not think this would be the case if we were working with an older age range because they will have seen and probably used disposable cameras before.  However, I do think this project could be run again with larger groups of the local community with a broader age range. I think it would be interesting to see the views from an older generation. It would be possible to get them to take photos using their on own cameras or on their phones and send them in electronically to us. New technology has advantages because it is quick and easy to use but my worry would be that we would struggle to get them to send them in at the end of the project. I imagine adults may not find this as exciting as the young people did because they already get the opportunity to take photos. I think adults would engage less in doing these activities than the young people.   When talking to the local people in the community it seems to be much divided in that young people will join in the activities but it is harder to get the older generation to get involved in art projects. 

The Project

We worked with the group members to take photographs in Revoe of all the things that represented the area for them. The group that came out to take the photographs mainly comprised of children aged 6 years to 10 years old. They took the pictures and the artists used the resulting photographs to create a collage celebrating the Revoe area. Disposable cameras were used for the project, replicating an old fashioned/dated way of taking photographs. Snap shots in time were taken of places the children had memories of including the library, their primary school, the park, shops and for some their own houses. The artists took as their inspiration the style of traditional post cards of Blackpool creating images as if reflecting memories over time. Some members of the Arts and Crafts group also wrote down their memories of places in Revoe and these feature in the window.

The work was on display from Thursday 20th June 2013 – Wednesday 17th July 2013.

It is difficult to say whether these weeks in the summer were the best time to display the work.  On the one hand, a lot of people go away in the summer and so we could have missed a local audience to view the shop front. On the other hand a lot of people come to Blackpool on holiday so it is possible that a whole range of people would see it that would not normally be there.  However Revoe area is not part of the traditional holiday area.

Three weeks probably wasn’t long enough for the display to have been up to generate much interest.  However, we were lucky in that the shop was being used as the new Hub for the local area and on the last weekend of the display they had a lot advising and fund raising which drew people to the shop which also generated interest in the display in the window.

The Venue / Geographical Area

The workshops took place at the Arts and Crafts Group at  Ibbison Court Community Centre in Revoe.  The photographs were taken around the local area of Revoe. Buildings like central library, Isbbison court and the shops on Central drive feature a lot in the piece.

The exhibition space was a small window so this limited the display size and amount of work we could put in there.  There was no electrical supply at the time which meant we had no lighting available which could have been added to help the piece be more visible. The shop was very basic and did not have much in there. New shop signage had just been done which could potentially have distracted people away from looking at the shop window display itself, however it may also have attracted people over to look.   Having the limited space in the window also impacted on the piece because we had to make sure some of the work was transparent so the shop could still get light and the piece ideally should not block the window off from people looking into the new local hub.  

The final preparation week was rushed to put up the displayed work.  We had to make decisions quickly about how to present the piece in the window. If we had given ourselves more time we may have planned better and come up with better solutions to the space and sourced better materials.

Some of the initial techniques did not work so well and so were scrapped but we came up with alternatives which worked better.  For example:

·       We needed to print with a laser printer and sourcing a laser printer took time

·       The time required for editing /flipping the photographs so that the information had the writing the right way.

·       Decisions on the title being put on window couldn’t be agreed.  We couldn’t decide on whether the title was important or whether it was needed for the display. 

·       We allocated ourselves tasks to complete for ensuring the piece was displayed to its best in the window and not all them got done for example lack of advertising for the window.

Project Delivery

1.     Workshop 20th May 2013: Meet and greet the group and explain the plan for next week

2.     Workshop 27th May 2013: Explain the ideas; learn how to take photographs with disposable camera and take photograph of the local area.

3.     Workshop -3^rd June 2013: choose photographs, drawing, text of memories of the local area for the shop window

One of the biggest challenges was finding time when all three artists could get together.  It was not easy to get a day we could all do and we had to forward plan for this and diary days and time we all were free on.

Communicating with the local group leader was pretty easy she encouraged us to come to her art and craft group. That was on a set day and time which worked with our team. Contacting the group leader was done via email and telephone calls which worked well between us.

I think the workshops went mostly as we expected apart from there were a few difficulties interacting with the children as they were doing other tasks set from last week. There were other activities taking place which did cause distraction to the children. They also had to make choices which children find hard at the best of times.  On future projects it would be better to have dedicated workshops with nothing else on.

Risk assessment comes in to place when managing children in the group to go outside. We had completed a risk assessment but hadn’t anticipated the children wanting to go to play on the park while we were taking photographs.  We had concerns –re health and safety due to the fact the play ground was wet and slippery. Whilst under our care we had to put rules in place to protect the children which possibly limited the amount of photos taken around this particular area.

I would potentially change some of the elements in the workshops if I was doing a similar task to this by planning a route taken by children. This would reduce the risk go into particular areas like park where children would be tempted to want to play.

As previously mentioned, we could have done more to advertise the final display like putting posters around the area and maybe in town to let people know about it. We mentioned advertising in the proposal and some of these things didn’t get done despite being allocated as specific tasks to a member of the delivery team.

Feedback

I have collected some of the local people feedback from the Culture Shop to see what others thought of the display. Examples of some the quotes received are below. On the whole most people had positive feedback for the window display.  The only negative feedback I was informed of was “the piece seemed a little small so it hard to see”.  I had a few people saying that they had to go right up to the shop window to see the piece.  Further planning if I was to do the project again I would have lighting, spot lights on the piece and enlarge the photographs so they were bolder and made bigger impact on people.

The children said they enjoyed taking photographs and were pleased with the result and they would like to keep their own photographs. The children seemed to enjoy the sessions especially going out to take photographs with their personal cameras. I think the children would have loved take more photographs but unfortunately the camera film was limited therefore maybe bigger filmed disposable cameras would have been better for the children.  We were asked by the Hub/ Ibbison Court if they could keep the piece after the display had finished and also the children’s requests for the copies of the photos they had taken, showed they were pleased with what they had done.

Quotes:

“I've got to say, the girls did a brilliant job and the community group were thrilled with the workshops and the end result”. 

 “It reflected the local area”  and “Captured the area well and gave a sense of history”.

“I loved the way the ageing process made each photo look like there was a story behind it- it makes Central Drive Mysterious!”

“The disposable cameras and editing the photographs was a good idea and work really well”.

“Reminding people of the good things in the area, People really thought they were old photos. Very interesting”.

Overall we were pleased local people felt we had shown Reveo area well

Digital camera type (unit 1 part D)

	lumix	Canon	Nikon	Sony	Fuji	Jvc everio	Samsung
lumix  Canon Nikon  Sony  Fuji Jvc everio Samsung  1 6 4 2 3 1 1 Have their views changed my view? Looking at the results it is interesting how mostly what I though, However I was surprised that a lot of people don't have a camera. Professional photograph mostly people felt could not take a photograph, yet as I though people mostly take photo themselves. People mostly would as I though would use a smart technique to take a photograph and they thought it would impact on people wiliness to pay for a professional to do the job.	1	6	4	2	3	1	1

Questionnaire Results : (unit 1 part D)

 

Do you own a digital camera    Yes = 16  / No = 7
Do you feel you have the ability to create a professional photograph? Yes = 5/ No = 15 and maybe = 4
Do you take photographs on a smart phone, Ipad or other device other than a digital camera?  Yes = 19/ No = 4
Are as good as a digital camera? Yes = 2/ No = 14 and maybe = 4
Do think smart phones and other technology impact on people's willingness to pay for  professional photography?
Yes = 12/ No = 6and maybe =4
Would you consider getting a professional photographer to take photographs for an event?    Yes = 8/ No = 3and maybe = 2
Would you take photographs yourself for an important occasion or celebration?  Yes = 14/ No = 5 and maybe = 6