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 -3rd 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
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