Inner musings

Wednesday I had another chat with Phil, and I think I was running away with myself a little, I had planned to do 5 set pieces to exhibit and do the posters, backboards, etc. Phil said that the posters would not be needed, as it wasn’t the promotion of the exhibition but the curation of same that I was focusing on. This actually made me happy, as posters are a bit boring aren’t they.

With Phils suggestion of working out the size/shape of the exhibition first by making models, I began cutting foamboard in the thought of doing flat slats that could be loaded into a truck to create ease of transportation, therefore creating a touring exhibition that would have a small number of items to view showing the birds in different situations of flight (if that makes any sense?). Once I’d cut the board to a desired size, I realised something; this is boring. I said in the beginning that I was aiming to explain flight to kids in an interesting way, and I criticised the Natural History Museum for putting things in boxes, and I was quickly allowing myself to do the same. Dunce!

I was trawling the internet yesterday as part of my research of our DP2 assignment (thinking of making masks from a single sheet of paper), I googled ‘Single Sheet of Paper’ and came across the work of Peter Callesen (www.petercallesen.com) his work is phenomenal.  Sitting there staring at the tissue I’d ‘creatively’ managed to superglue to my thumb, I remembered the installation he had made for children -Himmelrum, This was an interactive piece that kids can walk around, climb on, in and under. I’d been considering hanging my origami birds from a branch, why not the whole tree? Granted, this makes it harder to tranport, but if the tree itself is movable/collapsable surely this would be more exciting to children than just a walk through exhibit? I also remembered the cabinet of tiny hummingbirds at the natural history museum (pictured), so beautiful, perhaps I could ‘free’ these birds and hide them around the tree, creating a challenge for children to find them all.

 

It was also discussed in the tutorial the idea of hanging of birds either from strings or from the ceiling, which might be a better option for the flying cranes, different stages could be shown on different heights. There could be many of them, like the speakers in Susan Hillier’s Witness. I could play around with lighting as well to add impact. Hmmmm…..

Next steps…

1 – Create scale model of tree

2 – Decide on which aspects of birds in flight to display on tree – will I need the boards as well?

3 – make, make, make!

Swans are Lazy (aka: I’m getting there, honest!)

Today I went to Windsor,  I went with the  intention of taking pictures of swans or geese taking off, this did not happen. SWANS ARE LAZY.

I did get too close to comfort to a swan at one point, which was disconcerting. I also managed to get quite a few shots of seagulls and pigeons. I guess being big like a Swan means it’s too much effort to actually fly, so is best avoided. Especially when people are constantly throwing food at you.

See how close!

Thats not even the closest he got either, I was too scared to actually take that picture, worried that the click of the camera would cause him to attack (they can break a mans arm you know*) but he seemed to get the hint eventually and started following someone else. How fickle.

 

Aside from this, over the last week I’ve been focusing my ideas, I need to contact someone with regards the collation of an exhibition, I’d like it to be someone at the Natural History Museum, but will be emailing a few places for assistance.  I also realised I need to consider promotion for this ‘exhibition’ posters, flyers etc. Tickets are usually of the ‘in house’ design of whichever museum or gallery you are visiting, but I wonder if this could be changed. The Big Chill festival has a really lovely ticket in 2007 which I happen to have kept… I hope, which had golden birds down the perforation, maybe something special could be done for certain exhibitions? I guess cost is a major factor, especially for museums. So perhaps I don’t need to bother with this.

I also bought the paper for the cranes and the Zoetropes, so will have to think of a way to display these once they are done.

I had been thinking of using recycled materials for each of the artifacts, and send a message about environmental protection at the same time, but I like the purity of new paper (I’ve bought hand-made for the cranes) and there is also the thought of wether or not this would be a long standing exhibition, would recycled materials be up to the task? remoulded plastics, sure, but realistically I can’t get hold of that sort of thing easily, and I dont want birds made of plastic bottles (just an example) as this could confuse what it is I’m trying to communicate.

I’m looking briefly into different cultures and flight, just because of using Origami, its only fair to acknowledge the country it came from, and somewhat topical at this sad time.

*This is an urban legend, and may or may not be true.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Having my tutorial today with Phil was, as ever, a great help. I went in a little lost, Phil seems to have gained telepathic powers along with his pacemaker and asked the right questions. So, with that in mind, I have narrowed down my exhibition from Flight (which is huge), to Birds in Flight (less huge, and more beautiful).

I threw a sicky from work on Monday and hauled arse round The Natural History and Science museums, I also dashed into the V&A briefly, but had to leave for an appointment.

Taking loads of photos of birds and planes as research, and after talking with Phil, I thought two things:

1- The Natural history museums bird ‘display’ sucks. I mean honestly, you wander around the rest of the museum and everything has stuff to play with, stuff to get kids excited, things to explain how things do things, and then you go into the birds bit, and its all things in glass cases. Similarly with the Flight exhibit at the Science museum, although they have sims to play on these are separate from the main exhibition and you have to pay for them. BOOOOO!

2- I took pictures of artefacts, not the exhibitions as a whole, so I kinda suck too.

So I’ll be heading up there again on Friday, but late, theres a ‘magic lantern’ in the V&A that only runs when it’s dark, and I really want to film it. I hope to make a zoetrope over the weekend, and this is a beautiful example of one on a MASSIVE scale. Its also to do with flight. 2 birds, one stone. No pun intended.

I think I want to explain how birds fly, and look at the early stages of human flight (on a small scale, more of a nod really) to kids. I think the exhibits that work best are interactive, and remember to this day (and not because I went in there, I didn’t) the Creepy Crawlies exhibit. I have a phobia of spiders, so its not my favorite place to ‘hang’ but it is amazing, so interactive and genuinely interesting.

I wonder if one of the guys at the museum will talk to me about why they think it’s so successful, and perhaps I should try and talk to some kids about what they find would find interesting about birds. Research the demographic. The latter I think I would have to try and ask a school for help with, parents wouldn’t be to impressed with a madwoman asking their kids questions at random.

I have also been teaching myself some Origami (with a little help from YouTube) I’m not sure where I’m going with that, but Phil came up with a great Idea about using Origami models to explain certain aspects of birds flight. I’m totally using that!