The Waiting Room exhibition

Installing

The Waiting Room is an old bus shelter space in Colchester, Essex. It has been converted into a communal area that is run by volunteers. The Waiting Room has lots of different events going on throughout the week, like fish & chip nights, bands and even yoga, it is a very versatile and bright space. There is also an old London bus that is a part of the Waiting Room building, which we will be using for our exhibition. The site has two kiosks which are rented out to artists in the area to use as studio spaces, one of which we will also be using for the exhibition. The title of the exhibition is the ‘Draw Slam’ and is the students of Colchester School of Art’s reaction to what they consider to be drawing; pushing the boundaries and interpreting personal approaches to drawing. 

The space itself is very different, the bright green walls are unrelenting and were relatively difficult to hang work on. The entire room is windowed, with a very high ceiling which is adorned with fantastic strings of bulb lights. The place looks very contemporary and casual, the back wall is a white wall space reserved for artworks from the colchester area. We will be using the entire space, however it still has to function like normal so floor space is restricted, something we needed to consider when hanging the work. It proved quite difficult at times to work around the space; the bar and the tables, but it was a challenge and very different to anything we have worked in before. You need to consider what the space is used for and the style, it needs to be appropriate and versatile, I believe as well not very precious because the security of the building is not particularly good, its a public space after all that is open regularly till very late. This is something we really needed to take into account when installing video works with televisions, headphones and DVD players. The bus and the kiosk would remain locked throughout the time the exhibition is on, and it would be the students responsibility to unlock the shutter window of the kiosk throughout the week, which is a role that we are all going to share. 

My friend Sarah Edgington was in charge of curating the exhibition, which was a big role, organising 35 artists from different years. It made the work very diverse and the experience a positive one because of the range in ages and people who were at very different stages in their education. The third years, like myself, who are edging to refining their practice for the degree show to the first years who are just starting to experiment. It gave opportunity for engaging with these different levels, and the ability to give some good feedback and advice. For the first years particularly I felt that it was fantastic that they were thrown into the exhibition so early on in the year, which would have really pushed them to start producing work, which is something that I really struggled with at that time. It also gave them experience of putting work into a show and having to meet deadlines and work with people who they are unfamiliar with. The older students were able to have a go at organising something of that size with so many people to consider. Everyone worked really well together, although there were a couple of incidences where people were inconsiderate of the space and the Waiting Room as well as the other people in the show. Considering the amount of work in the space as well, many students produced very large pieces of work, and expected everything to be as they envisioned it but in reality this just could not happen, as we really had to consider the space. I helped Sarah, with a few others, to co-ordinate the people and the work, as well as the opening evening and entertainment. I was impressed with the precision of the artists in the show, including fixings and instructions for their work, it made actually hanging the work a lot easier, and a much more enjoyable experience because we were able to concentrate on the important aspects instead of worrying about things other people should have already thought about. 

It was a long few days installing, with so much to hang it was a daunting task. Luckily Sarah is very organised and had already made plans for the work she had seen, so ideas were mapped out before we even stepped into the space. It was important to hang the really key big pieces first, we had co-ordinated the help of some fabulous technicians, as the ceiling of the building was far too high for any of the students to reach. A fantastic sculpture, made by a third year student Polly Rowland-Castle was the first piece to be hung, the sharp edges posed a problem because as it was hanging it needed to be well above head height. It was tricky to hang from the tall rafters but in the end looked fantastic and was, most importantly, safe for the public to walk under! The next task was hanging all the very large paper pieces which were positioned around the room. On the back wall we considered relationships with the bright colours and co-ordinated these pieces together. The far windows had two monotone pieces which were large enough to fit the entire panes of the windows. The kiosk became a white wall gallery space that was integral for the exhibition as we had a lot of pieces that would only work in a space like this, we created a small side exhibition room that had a brilliant sound piece by a first year artist, Jo, which contained noises of him marking paper, a hypnotic view of what drawing was. The sound drew the audience into the space. We had two people putting films into the exhibition, which were placed on either side of the main doors as you come in, both with headphones attached. The smaller pieces were easer to place, mine for example was a small photograph in a black frame with a piece of writing which hung on one of the pillars as you entered the room. Small canvas pieces collected together on the walls on either side of the back white wall space. On the evening, a collaboration of two artists Hailey Ryan and Jess Perry, were creating a performance drawing piece in the upper level of the bus and projecting a film on the bottom level. This was mainly for the night although they would be continuing work in the space throughout the next week. The work mixed well together, creating a level of difference that was striking in comparison with the brief. The interpretations of drawing were varied, and many mediums were used. An idea that the space suggests is a very unfinished quality, the mis-match approach of the furniture makes it seem very rough and ready, the work was very vibrant and fitted well with the bright colours of the wall and the communal space. 

For the invited view night, we produced numbered artists statements gathered onto one page which allowed the viewers to see the short descriptions of the work that the artists had provided, an insight into their ideas of drawing and the origins of the work they had created. We included a written description of the brief to give the viewers a context in order to connect with the work. 

The 'Invited' View

The invited view was held on the Thursday evening from half 6 in the evening. Lots of people were invited and food was provided by a fantastic Chef, The Gamekeeper’s Daughter. She made a delicious curry that filled the entire space with intoxicating aromas. We wanted to include food to keep with the informal nature of the space, the tables had to be out so we might as well use them! It also meant that people would stay longer, instead of having to leave to grab something to eat. The bar was also open; stocked with various local brews that fitted with the contemporary edge of the show. I had sourced two songs from each artist that I put onto a playlist which was played throughout the evening, at half 8 a local band came in to play and practice, which really changed the atmosphere of the place. With this we managed to have a few different spaces throughout the evening, the first being a much more formal view of the work, then everyone ate, then the people that stayed were able to drink to some very soft and relaxing music played on a variety of instruments, the musicians were particularly skilled but you can tell that they were still in the practicing stage but this worked with what we were trying to do. The band was one of those hiccups that you always have on the night of an opening, we were not sure if they were playing at all until they turned up halfway through but it was meant to be for the night and the feedback they got was very positive. 

I did a speech at the beginning of the night introducing the audience to the brief and giving some general information on what the exhibition was about. Also thanking various sponsors we had had and any help that we received throughout, I also included a rough guide for the plan of the evening. It was very daunting, as this is the first time I had spoken out in front of people like this, and I hadn’t really had much time to practice reading the speech through that many times. I hadn’t really had a chance to be nervous about it which I feel was a positive thing. The feedback I got was good, hopefully I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt just before I started. 

The night was incredibly successful. The performance went off well, and the bus was an exciting space that people were intrigued to explore. The building was lit bright against the cold, wet night, and made the place look very inviting. There was plenty of positive feedback about the work in the show and many artists were approached by people interested in learning more about the work. Perhaps next time a good idea would be to have name tags, this way the guests could connect the faces of the students with the work that they were seeing. More conversation with new people would have been nice. The food was delicious and the chef did a fantastic job, the atmosphere was comfortable and relaxed the entire night. When you experience an evening like that where all the hard work has come together it makes you feel very proud of everything that has been achieved and of all the students that took part. It was a very different space to what we are used to and that was mirrored in the more casual approach we took to the opening night. The guests all looked like they enjoyed themselves and everything went to plan!