Permission

ATELIER PUBLIC 17 January 2012

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks but I was de-installing then floored by a cold. 

So just a wee update ( I still haven’t had a chance to finish all the documentation from the exhibition to post up yet)

ATELIER PUBLIC closed at 5pm on Sunday 15 January and then Rachel Mimiec and I spent the next 5 days in the gallery to de-install it. A chance conversation with Peter McCaughey about *recycling the materials* led to a much more considered approach to the de-install than we had originally thought about and some exciting new works developed out of that process. Will show them in later posts but here’s a taster image.

ATELIER PUBLIC 20 January 2012

I found the de-install difficult to begin (I didn’t want to see the exhibition close and the work disappear from the space) but also enjoyable while were doing it. We discovered works that we hadn’t seen properly before, by removing work around them. Each surface had a different set of ‘rules’ for de-installation which led to a different set of discoveries and enjoyments.

Peter McCaughey and Jim Hamlyn also came in on the Tuesday afternoon to de-install, although their approach was very different to mine and Rachel’s. They continued the play that they have explored while the exhibition was open and produced some lovely new works. However, while they wore doing it Rachel and I were looking at each other wondering what we had given permission for them to do and how it had altered our plans for the space.

Permission was a key factor in ATELIER PUBLIC. I mentioned this in an earlier post where Johnny Gailey raised the idea that the permission to make in the space had already been given, so nobody needed to seek my permission to do anything there. By inviting people in to the space that was all the permission they needed.

I struggled with this for a while because as the curator I was really interested in what people were doing and wanted to do in the installation. But after this conversation I realised that this was impossible and, as I had given people ‘permission’ to make in the space, I had to let that happen without controlling it.

The same happened in the de-install – I could only observe and direct so much without letting go for other exciting things to happen.