The exhibition and the end of Unit X

It was great to have the chance to see other people's work today, in Kraak and other venues. 

I watched a few of the videos, which I wouldn't normally do, instead being drawn towards sculpture and textile pieces and was most impressed by the Phobia of 13 group's one located downstairs in Incognito - the video was really well put together, with creepy effects and the setting was dressed really well with spider - web -like woolen threads covering the room. I felt uneasy, which was the intended result and it was visually exciting.

I was really disappointed to see that Jacob's video from our group was cut to less than 20 seconds on the loop; it was supposed to be 175 seconds long, to tie in with the anniversary theme, and other groups were given several minutes, some of which were extremely repetitive. It had been made clear to tutors in early tutorials that we would like to use 175 seconds of footage, so it is hard to understand why it was cut so dramatically. The point of exhibiting early on in the course is to give us a chance to prepare work to show and allow others to see it and give feedback. Jacob has not been given this chance.

One unforgettable thing I've learned from this experience is that when arranging an exhibition outside of the University to check in advance what kind of publicity the gallery may or may not use for the exhibit. There was a large sign just inside the door saying 'kraak gallery', but no one had put it out in the street, so mostly the visitors seemed to be other MSA students. Had we realised there would be no easily visible promotion of the gallery or the exhibit, we would have made flyers or signs to get more people to come and see the show. Also it would have been better to have the exhibition on in the evening; most members of the public are busy during the day and with such a short run time an evening showing time could have helped make the exhibition into more of an event.

Only signage for KRAAK that we could find!

Something I realised last week was that I should have found the focus of my work sooner; at one point I wanted to churn out papers and origami boxes so I would have 175 of them, and didn't stop to analyse which were working best and which were not. I could have definately saved myself some time and effort if I had kept looking at what I was doing as I did it! I would still like to use my pantone colour boxes and matchsticks in future, even if it is just to photograph them in locations matching their colour, or a place built in the relevant decade.

The personality of the boxes was something that was mentioned in tutorials; I enjoyed trying to find a narrative for them to make one of the origami books, and this could be exploited in future to draw in the viewer and add another level of meaning to my work. It's not something that I've been interested in using before, but I enjoy looking at everyday objects that seem to have their own personality and could easily build a photo collection of these. They could be inspiration for drawings or prints and might inject a new energy into my work.

It is a shame that our group didn't have more active members; for most of our meetings there were 3 of us, (Sue, Safia and myself) and it would have been nice to get a wider variety of perspectives to work with. With more people we could have scaled up our work, found a way to link our pieces or make a single collaborative piece. However I think our individual pieces were successful, the 3 of us worked well in the gallery to install the works and they link together with the 175, play and paper themes. I intend to look at the rest of Jacob's film through Facebook.

I think the film and media students were put under more pressure than the other subjects were, with lots of deadlines occurring during the unit. This meant they could not contribute as much in the beginning. Perhaps if Unit X became an official part of their course, they could give it their undivided attention.

Overall my reaction to Unit X has been mixed. It has confirmed my view that groups can work well together, but only if they are willing to make decisions without people who can't be there, and accept the limits that number impose. I knew Safia and Sue well before working on this project, which made it easier to communicate our ideas equally but it would have been good to have 'fresh meat' to add something different in to the mix. I think the unit overall would have worked better if we had had 2 tutorials a week; that way, most people would come to at least one of them and it would make the level of work expected clearer. It felt like we were given too much time for the amount of work expected. Also, the community feel that we had during the print unit effectively disappeared; I definitely prefer to work with others around. They can give you feedback as you work, and work produced while talking can be more free and spontaneous than pieces produced by yourself with no distractions. In other words, for me I think a little more structure is a good thing. Would I recommend Unit X to a friend? I have to say no in its current form. With a little more structure, better organisation and more input from tutors, a shorter run time and the choice to choose our own venue, that might change to a yes.

Setting up the exhibition

Today we finally got to set up our exhibition in Kraak Gallery, in the Northern Quarter. It is quite difficult to find, and I was a little disappointed with it when we arrived. The floor hadn't been swept, the walls are curved and marked and there are wires everywhere; from their website I imagined somewhere clean and slick. However, once everyone's work was up the space looked a bit better and the viewers' attention will hopefully be on our work, not the state of the gallery.

We had asked for a large area of wall space in a corner but received a flat wall that wasn't quite big enough. With a mixed exhibit trying to accommodate so many different requirements this was to be expected though, and although it meant having to compromise a little to fit everything in, the end results still looked good. I tried a couple placements out using blu-tac before settling on a final composition. 

Safia, Sue and I helped each other put up work, but it would have been easier with Ollie and Jacob there. As students submitting films were told they could leave, Jacob was free to go, and Ollie told us that he would be putting up his work on Thursday morning. We hadn't seen either of them in a while, and had only met Ollie twice, so were unsure how much space to leave for his work. This initially held us up, however by trying things out we realised that there was only one arrangement that would accomodate Safia and I's work well, and so used that.

Initial presentation

Final position for large photographs, fixed with sticky dots and tacks

Fortunately a plinth was available to display my photo books and origami pieces. I also made a concertina card containing smaller versions of the large photographs on the wall. I felt that although Hannah's idea of a drawn book sounded intriguing, from my perspective the purpose of the project was to document the origami and bring out the character of  Manchester School of Art's buildings and the playful nature of the origami pieces themselves. As a result, one book focusses on the 'journey' of the boxes from folded templates to little colonies of boxes before becoming an advancing population on top of a table, with the Holden Gallery as a back-drop. The other book shows the boxes arranged in compositions demonstrating their scale, and in front of the patterned surfaces that influenced my hand-made papers.

In the photo above, I was happy with the positions of the large photographs, but the pieces on the plinth didn't quite feel right. Once I had cut the concertina card in half and re-arranged things, the arrangement was mostly symmetrical, felt more open and flowed better. It was important to include the origami boxes in order to show their true scale next to the large, scale-distorting photographs. It seemed appropriate to organise them by colour, and stack them as they had been in my earlier photographs.

Concertina cards in the centre, origami pieces and books on either side

New photo shoot and origami books

Using the scanned papers I printed out and original papers, I made some new origami boxes, and went to MSA's Holden Gallery to photograph them. I wanted to try out a few new approaches and look at how the boxes come across when presented as a group. Again I co-ordinated the colours of the boxes with the background they are based on.

I took a series of photographs from the same spot; each time I would remove one of the boxes so that it looked as if they were receding. Ordering the photos in reverse was actually more effective, as an army of boxes began to appear. Although not quite right for the exhibition, this technique would be good to use in the future. 

I have printed out my photos and selected out the best while trying to maintain a variety of scales, colours and numbers. There are about 20 remaining, including ones I will scale up and present as A3 or A2 images. I hope to get some useful feedback tomorrow from my group and tutors to whittle down the numbers further. Hannah suggested last week that I could make a concertina book to house the photos I'm not blowing up, but in searching online for 'origami book instructions' I found simple designs for pages and a cover from docstoc.com and whipup.net. The result resembles an actual book, involved a single cut and plenty of folding, and is sturdy enough to easily stand up by itself. This means I will be able to show 12 photos in the exhibition without them taking over.

My attempt at a simple 6 page origami book

I gathered together some of the green, brown and neutral coloured origami boxes to take to the gallery, and will decide which ones to present once I'm there. As there will be other students' exhibits nearby I can then choose the most appropriate colours to use so that they won't clash or blend in too much.

Scanning origami papers

Originally I took photographs of my hand made origami paper, as the lighting seemed good, it would be far quicker that scanning them and I could make compose groups of papers as I went. However when it came to printing them out on normal printer paper, all of the images came out with a greyish tinge to them. Also, the paper itself is relatively flimsy.

So, today I went through my box of origami boxes, selected the patterned ones that I had made and unfolded them to put through the scanner. This worked a lot better, and as the scanner works at a high resolution I could zoom in on scanned images to show a range of marks that usually couldn't be seen. 

An interesting effect occurred; the fold marks on the originals were scanned, so that the printed out papers (this time on cartridge paper) look like they have been creased. It makes them seem 3D and highlights the paper folding techniques used to make the boxes. I am using these printed papers to make larger boxes, so these details should stand out well.

Tutorial May 7th - presentation presentation presentation!

Today we focussed on presentation of our for the upcoming exhibition. Unfortunately the media students were not there, so we aren't sure exactly how they are planning to exhibit their work. Sue is planning to use a second-hand suitcase to showcase her labels and photographs, which will be at the end of Safia's hanging journey, a series of labels each representing a journey she has made that will be stitched together and hung from fishing line.

I had a few different ideas for presenting my work, but wasn't sure which way to go forward. I liked the photographs taken around MSA, and thought that I could possibly put a large photo on the wall, and attach lots of small origami boxes to it, replacing the ones seen in the photo. After discussion with Hannah, I realised that this would probably confuse the 2 separate elements, and do both a disservice. 

arches photo with small origami pieces added on

Another idea was to present the photo on the wall, but to arrange many boxes on the floor in a pile. I think that randomly putting the boxes together wouldn't make much sense in relation to my research, as each colour and pattern has come from a specific place and the shapes are ordered.

arches photo with origami pile below

Thinking along those lines, I considered stacking the boxes in a more regimented way, as I had when taking photos, but to form a silhouette of the new art school building alongside the old ones along the wall. This would definately fit my project but felt too obvious somehow, as if too much was being dictated by the art school - shape colour form and presentation.

structured origami boxes forming a silhouette

We talked about the fact that in a couple of the photos, the scale of the origami wasn't immediately obvious. I hadn't really noticed myself, but Hannah had assumed that the arches photo had been altered on photoshop to make the boxes large, instead of a simple photo from an interesting perspective. 

playing with scale

When she discovered that they were small she was surprised; this was a good reaction as I think that people want to see something unexpected or new that makes them alter their approach to viewing work in future. I want to give other people that surprised feeling, and in order to do that I need to include a few carefully chosen photos that play with the idea of scale, and a few of the boxes so that the 'trick' has a reveal and viewers know that it is an illusion. Maintaining the subtle feel of the photos is important, so  stacking some origami boxes against a wall should demonstrate the actual scale without taking over. 

The colours based on the pantone decades no longer seem to fit with my project, so I will abandon them for now, focussing instead on the patterns and colours based on my school of art photos. Similarly the matchsticks will have to take a back seat. I plan to select out the origami pieces that fit in with this project and take more photos on location, with an emphasis on scale. The matchsticks and other other colours could definately be taken in other directions and would make a good extension to this project.

Photographing origami around MSA

As suggested by Mark and Hannah, I went around the school of art with my origami pieces taking photographs. I selected the ones that were coloured to match a particular feature or echoed a specific pattern seen in the school of art, and captured them in that location.

The colours used were fairly muted, and so to add interest I tried to capture the origami blocks from different angles and using different scales. These are a small selection that have had small lighting adjustments and have been cropped for compositional purposes.

the dark base helps to ground this grouping

the contrast between the paper and the sofa makes this image bold

an illusion; the origami is lying on the seat of the sofa, but when the image is rotated they appear to levitate, which is a more interesting way to present them

huddled together the origami colours blend with the statue and the 5 pieces mirror the 5 toes

the boxes' 'ears' were inspired by these arches, so it was important to line them up on their sides to demonstrate this

using the 'ears' the boxes were hung in the gaps of this grill, in the same arrangement as the cross shapes

this photo was carefully composed, the colour balance works well and the boxes aren't the only focus point

a similar arrangement as above, with the boxes mirroring the vertical design of the tiles and matching colour-wise

a simple tower was difficult to balance because of the paper's flaws and folds

Other paper artists' work

I had a look online for some inspiration for the exhibition; there are so many people working with paper at the moment, so I tried to narrow the field by looking at people producing work related to my own in some way, or that shows an inventive arrangement or presentation.

I have come across Peter Callesen's work before; his work could be termed 'zero waste' as he tends to use every bit of the paper in his finished pieces, as part of the main image or to keep a viewer's eye moving over the piece. I think that the most obvious example of this can be seen in 'the roots of heaven', below. The coloured paper helps to demonstrate the intricacy and delicacy of the papercut, and the mirroring of the roots and leaves makes it clear that every part of the paper has been utilised.

One of his larger works involved decorating the outside of a mobile library, where he collected book title suggestions from local children and added them to the book spines on the bus. The pattern resembles my colour stripes, and stands out when used on that kind of scale. The fact that the spines are not uniformly arranged adds movement and again makes you look around the work.

A Korean artist, Lee Kyu Hak recreates famous works of art using sticks or foam wrapped in newspaper. They instantly reminded me of my coloured matchsticks, and although his tones are muted there is enough contrast to make his work dynamic. I have been considering using the matchsticks to form silhouettes of Manchester School of Art's buildings, and if I lay contrasting sticks next to each other to form edges and shapes, the results should be exciting, as demonstrated with this recreation of Van Gogh's 'Starry Nights', below. It would also be good to link the arrangement of my origami to Manchester School of Art in some way. 

Simon Schubert is a German paper engineer whose work could also be classed as 'zero waste'. He creates subtle images by folding and unfolding paper. The shadows create the lines in this 'drawing' and could be mistaken for pencil lines. As well as using bold contrasts in the presentation of my work, I need to use subtle colour changes to draw the eye in; Schubert's paper drawings force you to peer at them to appreciate them fully, which is exactly what you want if your work is to stand out. To make it easier to see on here I have included one of his more contrasting drawings.

Matthew Shlian makes 3D paper folded pieces. Again, it is the contrast between shadow and lit paper that gives each work its form. By using different sized 'pieces' this repetitive pattern is made more interesting, and the although the resulting scatter effect is not a new one, it is visually fascinating.

Finally, the French artist Mademoiselle Maurice links humans with the environment using her paper pieces. Although she usually uses more colour than this, the arrangement below spells a powerful yet simple message which evokes emotion and memory when you see it. The use of negative space is clever, as it provides 2 different focus points; the paper shapes and the colour behind them. This is a technique I could use for the exhibition.