transfers from Blackboard : 2

Brainstorming 28.02.07
Sue Clarke

This is a summary of our conversation this morning - Lynda, Heather and Sue. It was a throwing-ideas-around sort of session, the first time we'd met together face to face. I'm recording it all here in case there are ideas that we discount now, but which may become relevant again later.

Everyone had done some initial trawling through Google, Wilson Web and library catalogues, searching under 'touch', 'haptic', 'object handling', 'feel', etc. This had produced references to previous exhibitions and galleries – Birmingham's In Touch Gallery, Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, Please Touch at the University Museum of Natural History in Oxford, and the Science Museum in London. We also found case studies of best practice of access for blind and partially sited people in museums, galleries and heritage sites. Also a series of workshops funded by AHRC about 'Touch and the value of object handling' - which included names of invited speakers.

In terms of exhibitions, we were already aware of Sense and Sensuality 2006 at the Bankside Gallery, two of us having visited last year. The submissions criteria and list of judges are still on their website [www.blindart.org] and might be useful as reference.

Literature-wise, we'd found abstracts of articles about tactile opportunities in museums and galleries, which we can follow up. We were also aware of the divide between art historians tending not to like people touching artwork (damaging, destructive), and how families/children love it. Heather had found reviews of ‘Touch this’ at the V&A last year which we need to read. We could also find reviews of Sense and Sensuality from last year to see the response to that.
[At the moment we’ve just been gathering resources, prior to meeting up to throw ideas around.]

One significant work might be Caravaggio’s ‘Doubting Thomas’ painting (1602-03), an instance of vision not being adequate to convince.

So … we talked about how many sites had moved away from a rigid separation between the art and the viewer - about places where you can move around and behind the work [eg Madame Tussauds]. Similarly there are hands-on and interactive exhibits at the Science Museum. But we didn’t feel that pursuing this path would make for an original exhibition unless it was done on a very major scale, with very sophisticated facilities and this was beyond what we were envisaging.

We want therefore to narrow down our audience:
- not specifically targeted at children and families, although they would be welcome
- not specifically targeted at blind or visually impaired people, although hey would also be welcome.
It would be more a specialised exhibition which drew attention to the way we predominantly rely on our eyes for information. So we’d want to encourage experiencing the exhibits by touch - weight, temperature, solidity, etc.

We talked about the space we might like to use. A side room of the Tate was suggested, as being the right sort of size. The Lisson Gallery was another possibility - initially not favoured because it was a bit out of the way and would need a special trip. But then perhaps in favour again because people would come specifically for the exhibition and we might use this to our advantage to dissuade ‘passing trade’. The Serpentine was also considered. Also, outside space, maybe a marquee in the summer. Maybe the garden at the V&A. The outside possibility seemed to restrict the sort of work we could show – probably not books, fabrics, but mainly sculpture, and so we abandoned this idea. We had previously discussed a mobile show, but have now discounted that.

We wondered if we could tie the exhibition into something that was already happening or planned - the Olympics? Mulling this over - nothing triggered as yet.

Dividing the exhibition into different environments or themes was an idea that cropped up. It might allow us to think more specifically about our exhibits. A previous show had divided into domestic, garden and darkness. We thought it might be a good plan to try this when we come to more specific organising.

This led on to us thinking about the exhibits again and to exactly what we’re trying to say. Is it allowing people to touch exhibits that they wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch? Or is it about heightening awareness of how much we use our eyes and how little we use our other senses? This was the breakthrough we were after - an exhibition that allows the visitor (not the viewer!) to do all the things that are normally not allowed in an exhibition space. It would go outside the boundaries of usual behaviour. We brainstormed the things you can’t usually do.
- not allowed to photograph
- not allowed to video
- not allowed to sit on the exhibits
- not allowed to get too close
- not allowed to touch artworks/frames
- not allowed to deface the work
- not allowed food or drink
- not allowed to remove anything (maybe we could have someone making origami birds, that could be taken away; maybe on the last day you could take the exhibits away, so the exhibition disappears? Art as an event, rather than art as an exhibition?)

So we’ll look at taboos in the gallery space.

How will we acquire work for this sort of show?
Several names sprang to mind:
- Susan Collis. Paintspots and scratches on furniture that are deliberately worked to be deceptive. Things being not what they seem if you only use your eyes. Also James Turrell’s light pieces. Richard Wentworth’s black plastic bag?
- Carsten Holler’s slides at the Tate. We thought that this might extend the sensory idea behind Holler’s Tate slides; maybe we would invite him to write an essay or a foreword to our programme.
- Anish Kapoor’s piles of pigments. Clearing up powder would be a nightmare and it would rapidly descend into a mess?)
- The lumosphere. A sphere containing coloured light that you can put on your head - a strange experience because you really can’t tell where the light is, how far away, what it’s made of, etc.
- furniture to sit on? Allen Jones’ tables?
- Deborah Harty’s chocolate drawings?
- Simryn Gill’s books, displayed at the Tate last year. These were presented in such a way that you could turn the pages.
- Visit the Contemporary Textiles Fair in Teddington (10-11 March) where they’re going to have a ‘sensory area’ and see how they tackle it.
Try to invite 6-10 artists to show existing work - or possibly commission new work. And the rest will be submissions for the show.

We could ask selected artists if they would allow us to show work on the understanding that the work would be used/handled. To supplement this, we would invite submissions, clearly stating that the work would be touchable / useable / possibly not returnable. But equally the artwork might be added to? We could invite people to add to work? We’d be interested to see if the visitors would deface the work or if people would be too inhibited – probably depends alot on the space that we use for the show (white gallery walls/tatty warehouse). If we left a musical instrument in the corner, would anyone play it?

Where would we advertise for submissions?
- an magazine, art monthly, art newspaper
- circulate document to all art schools for student submissions
- artists’ forums / websites
- open studios - is there a central mailing address that would go out to all groups for distributing?
- local radio/TV?
How broadly should we advertise - UK, Europe, world-wide? Outside the UK, the issues of transport and cost become more significant so this will depend on the funding we have available.


We would have to brief the staff about how the show would be stewarded, since it would be contrary to usual practice in a gallery space. We would need to investigate health and safety issues/ public liability insurance, etc.

How long would the exhibition run for? If works are going to be interfered with, would we have a clean up at the end of each day and put it all back to the beginning again? Or maybe it could just be on for one day? Or just for a weekend? So it would become more of an event than an exhibition – a big, brief splash. Maybe it could run as part of an education programme, as a short event/exhibition? Lynda volunteered to contact Liz Ellis, art educator at Tate Modern, to see if this might fit in with her programme.

If this worked and we could run the event under the Tate’s auspices, we would hopefully be able to use the side room that we’ve already hopefully earmarked. (This would be ideal for passing trade, and the exhibition may not be huge so perhaps better than having to come to a space solely for this event.) We would be able to call upon them for funding? And for borrowing any works that they already hold? And for help in running an education programme about sensory experiences in relation to galleries? And for publicity? It might be a co-operative venture between us and them. So our pitch on 28 March could be as if it were to the Tate, to see if they’d want to collaborate on this project as part of their education programme.


Other thoughts:
Timescale - Lynda to do exhibition plan. We’re thinking of next summer.
Programme - something more interesting and tactile than your average leaflet/booklet. Fabric? Hole punched? Raised ink? Embossed? Or just audio - on CD? Sue to investigate.
Curation - Heather to look into this.

One question we need to resolve:
Are people to be drawn in by things to look at?
Or are they drawn in by having things to do?