Execution

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Ideas That Didn't Make the Cut

Play Dough

Idea inspired by the artist called Jesse Wine, she uses the expressive potential of clay to capture specifc experiences

and routines. I really care V is one of a series of works from 2014 which represent the meals he made for himself over a period of time.

Bought some super soft clay dough for £2.99 and had my nephew help me

make some of these food plates.

It was really easy to work with and felt like it helped the conversation start

with an 11 year old.

It was quite fun making these because we were sat at the table chatting,

the rest of the family were curious as to what we were doing.

I think that interacting with children and adults is important because it creates

that bond that is important for both sides social skills.

It wasn't as messy as I thought it would be and not as difficult to mould the pieces

into shapes of fruits and food items.

It was really relaxing making the plates of food all whilst listening to my brothers

90's music in the background and having a a child ask why you are listening to that

music...

Pros:

Fun
Creative
Time consuming which would lead to visitors staying longer.
Interacting with the themes and artists that are included in the

exhibition.

Cons:

Not suitable around the exhibition because children may stick pieces

to the the artworks.

Hard to clean up at the end of each day
Could be an expensive activity
Health and safety
Could ruin children clothes/ hair etc.
Messy in all areas.

- Becca

Polaroid

Whilst in the mid of thinking of ideas for the resource centre for the exhibition, we looked into what we think made the 90’s the iconic 90’s we remember. We firstly produced a number of mood boards allowing us to see any reoccurring themes. Something I also find myself going back to when thinking about the 1990’s was polaroid cameras. There has always been a real enigma around the idea of being able to capture a moment using a film camera and being able to see the results of it almost instantly.

We wanted the space to give the visitors an opportunity to not only visit the exhibition, but be a part of it by leaving something of themselves, a legacy in a way. The act of creating a portrait is such an intimate act and it reveals so much that this collection of images would become an archive of it’s own within the exhibition, showing an ethnographic collection of the visitors of each exhibition space the work visits. I knew that I needed to consider if it was a possibility to begin with.

However once, we looked over the figures of making this possible, with the camera costing around £60-£70 and each 20 exposures for the camera costly approximately £15 and with a potential of 15'000 visitors, it would cost approximately £11,250 which is not something within the Art Council England's budget unfortunately.

- Ashleigh

Finger Painting

Inspired by Hermione Wiltshire’s “My Touch”, While we were trying to come up with ideas that would fit with each theme of the exhibition, we chose Hermione Wiltshire’s “My Touch” work for the Physical Evidence section of the exhibition. We wanted to use this art work as inspiration for a potential activity for the activity space. Eventually we came up with the idea of doing a finger painting activity where children could make a painting using their finger prints. Finger prints are unique to each person, so it shows that each painting will be individual to each person.

I needed to try out this idea to see how it would work and what problems it could create within the activity space, I used some acrylic paint that I have in my art supply but for the activity space they could use some regular poster paints. I found two poster paint options that they could have bought for this activity.

Kids Brushes and Ready-Mix Paint Bundle – Hobby Craft

£5.00

Pack contains 12 kids brushes and 6 150ml ready mixed paints.

The problem with this option is that there isn’t a lot of paint here,

so they might have to spend quite a bit of money to get enough paint.

2. Ready Mixed Paint 5 Litre (single colours) – Baker Ross

£7.99 each but £7.50 if you buy 5 or more

7 colours to chose from

1 litre of each colour would probably be enough.

Pro’s

It would allow children to be free and creative with what they paint.
It is a talking point between adults and children.
Keeps children entertained so people will spend more time in the exhibition.
It allows children to create their own art work that they could then take home or leave behind.

Con’s

It will be messy; The Arts Council doesn’t want children with messy fingers putting prints everywhere.
Could be hard to clean up at the end of every day.
Children could possibly eat the paint (which isn’t ideal)
Might need to buy aprons to protect the children’s clothes.
The costs of all the paints, paper, wipes to clean people afterwards.

- Gracie

Cardboard Cutouts

In the initial idea stage of the process, we came up with an idea of using blown up cut-outs of certain pieces for the audience to interact with. This idea started in week 2 when we had our initial meeting with Natalie to discuss the exhibition and our project. She had come up with her own ideas of using photos and mirrors to introduce the idea of mixing the visitor with the artwork.

After this meeting we moved into the idea generation phase where we chose to expand on Natalie's ideas and create some of our own, it was at this stage that the cut-out idea began.

We then began to expand on this idea by selecting pieces within the exhibition that the idea could work around, the photography pieces were the most popular choice. A number of Sarah Lucas’ self-portraits were chosen as possible choices along with Douglas Gordon and Michael Landy as they would provide the best opportunity for blowing up and using as cut-outs.

In our next meeting at the Longside gallery, we talked through this idea with the curators and they pointed out that this idea would not be appropriate for the exhibition, with small issues around copyright they explained the main problem would be around the integrity of the artist and their work. As the exhibition is titled ‘Art and the Self since the 1990’s’ many of the pieces are autographical and will be understandably deeply personal to the artists so it would seem disrespectful for us to alter and possibly degrade their work in order to create a visitor activity, the curators also expressed concern with them having to call the artist and pitch the idea to them, as they have a working relationship this may have crossed some professional boundaries.

Upon reflection the underlying concept of trying to get visitors to engage with art in a more direct sense is a valid one and is an aim of our project, the idea and potential execution of the cut-out was not appropriate for this project and was not taken any further after our meeting at the Longside Gallery.

- Elliott

Easy Stitch Cards

One of the ideas at the beginning of the project was to design children's embroidery cards. We derived this idea from the curator's ideas, which was to sew a kind of rug. We thought about which activities would be good and not too complicated for smaller children and came across the idea of Easy-Stitch-Cards during our research.

Here, a pattern is pre-cut on a type of cardboard, which can be embroidered with needle and thread. This can be done with blunt plastic needles, so the kids will not hurt themselves too easily. When choosing the motive, we finally agreed on the outline of a boy or a girl. These should overlap so that the kids have a choice of which shape to embroider, or perhaps combine parts of each shape, But because scissors, needle and thread for the activity-space vouch for too many injury or swallowing risks for the children, this idea was unfortunately taken out of the running.

- Laura

Sofa’s

In this exhibition, My Bed, an important work of Tracey Emin, is absent. This work shows a terribly messy bed which the artist remained in it for several days without eating or drinking anything but alcohol. Some critics claimed that anyone could exhibit an unmade bed like this, however, they missed the most charming part, this work is about a connection, it links the experience of the artist and the public. While watching the artwork, the audiences is welcome to the artist’s life and encouraged to feel like her.

Back to the end of 2017, I was in an performance event which responded an exhibition of artist, Joseph Beuys, in Leeds Art Gallery. He was fascinated by Shamanism and curing the world with warmth object, such as fat and felt. Felt Suit was one of his most profound work of his life, I have seen this artwork twice in both Leeds Art Gallery and Tate Liverpool, they are displayed on the white wall and well protected with glass showcases. I have been asked many times by different people - What does this mean? After answering them with the artist’s concept and unusual experience, I realized the best way to encounter with this work is to wear it on and feel the warmth by themselves. As a pioneer, Joseph Beuys suggests a new relationship between humans and art, to get involved rather than to understand.

Felt Suit in Leeds Art Gallery

The Felt Suit made me think about the connection between artworks and audiences, and also senses which using in receiving information by human’s body. In the majority of art exhibitions, senses are always absent, when audiences read every introduction of the works, those words seems to be the most important thing.

What I designed for the exhibition was a bean bag bed, which would be put in the gallery with an introduction like other works on display, and is welcomed for audience to lay on. I hope it could be another version of Tracey Emin’s My Bed which allows an intimate sense, touching. Touching can rich the experience of audiences physically, after relaxing on the artwork, there should be a sense of joyful, which can be called as Warmth Force. The nearest Warmth Force that I generated myself related my personal experience while I visited Tate Modern in London. After watching all the artworks, fatigue hit me both in my body and brain, then I noticed an orange line of swings weaves through the Turbine Hall. I swung without hesitation, and felt pleasant and satisfaction generated, it was the Warmth Force. According to the location of Longside Gallery, its half an hour walk from YSP centre causes visitors consumption of their energy, so those bean bags might trigger the Warmth Force and occupy the exhibition.

- Lavi