Social Benefits

Why Is The Activity Space Important?

The Arts council collection provides a space within the exhibition that allows visitors of all ages to relax and engage in activities that are there to stimulate and feed their creativity. They want this space to be fun for visitors but also educational, it is an extension of the exhibition, to give the visitors a better understanding of what they are experiencing.

When children are young, they want to play with everything and if they could they would play all day long. Having a place where children can play and learn gives parents chance to be creative with them, something they may not have chance to do at home. It is a hope that some people might take some of these activities away with them and maybe replicate them at home for their children. The Arts Council collection want activities not only for children but for everyone, adults and teens included. Even if an activity is aimed at one particular audience it can also serves as a conversation starter between the generations. The theme of the 90’s is perfect for this because you will have older people that will remember the 90’s and then you will have teens and children that were either born in the 90’s or after. So, they have little to no memory of the 90’s they only know what they have been told or seen, so creating activities that allow conversations between generations breaks up the gaps and allows people to learn.

- Becca & Gracie

Joseph Beuys once suggest that the most important thing of an art work is not its meaning, art should get inside human’s body not just logically. After the beginning of modern art, artists have paid much more attention to the logic of their works and ignored interacting with their audiences, however what Beuys said reminded us to seek for a new way to communicate with art and the audiences, that is the feelings triggered by our body.

The main function of the activities space is to balance the experiences of logical receiving an physical giving. In the art work Fat Battery (1963), Joseph Beuys, consisted of various fat and felt elements, combined by Beuys to suggest the shape and function of a battery, reflecting his concern with the generation and storage of energy. In Taoism, everything on the earth were described as a rolling form with both Yin and Yang. The body is the same, when they are absorbing energy, they are actually emitting in the same time. The Fat Battery is such a perfect model of the theory of Taoism, the melting fat and the heat-dissipating metal are keeping the balance of conversion. So the activity space encourage visitors to create after critically thinking the logic behind those art works, this is an important way to balance the one-way output properties of the gallery.

It is also important to enhance the experience and memory of visiting. During my visiting with the team to Longside gallery, we were invited by the curator to see the storage room of the Art Council collection and touched a tiny sculpture. I was so excited to encounter with an art work by such a intimate sense which I did not experience before, and I felt somehow a close connection was built after touching. When the gallery connected with a visitor, it would not be just a space, but shift to a place which was meaningful to a visitor.

- Lavi

What Is An Activity Space

Normally an activity space is designed independently in the gallery to interact with visitors and encourages them to create and make with their open minds. The majority of the activity space is designed for children, and in such a space, they are provided with papers and color pencils to paint freely, it is a good way for them to escape from those serious works of art and enjoy themselves. Sometimes the activity space is also designed to relate with the ongoing exhibitions, for instant, in the exhibition In My Shoes: Art & the Self Since the 1990s, the curating team put two spherical mirrors in the activity space for people to look and to take photos, and there are some words around the mirror to inspire visitors to think deeply of the exhibition’s theme, such as Why do we make self-portraits? And Who does a selfie belong to?

- Lavi

The Value of The Zine?

The Zine creates its’ own value in the way it allows the barrier of age gaps to be broken. It has the social benefit of allowing conversations and the prospect of storytelling to unfold between generations. With this in mind, there are several opportunities through both zines where the chance for engagement is brought to the foreground. This was something in which the client was very eager to push within the activity centre.

- Ashleigh & Lavi

How Successful was The Zine?

I can strongly say the zine was successful in terms of the requirements of what it was the client required of us. However, I believe that it is the function of the Zine that has the greatest potential on a social level, as it eliminates the idea of ‘them and us’ found in the divide of generations and converts that into a simple and humble ‘we’. It allows this notion of togetherness, allowing people of all ages and walks of life to see we are much more alike than we will ever be different. Throughout both zines, there are opportunities where the curiosity of wonder creates an overlap in all those part-taking in the activities and it is within that small yet potent space that the act of storyteller and the listener finds its’ place.

- Ashleigh & Lavi

The Value of The Snapchat Filter?

This activity allows the Arts Council collection connect with different audiences than what they would usually. they usually do activities for children or adults but having and using a snapchat filter will engage a teenage audience. Teenagers are known for always being on their phones so it makes sense to give them something that works with the apps and technology that they are already using. As we have seen from our research, Snapchat has had the highest growth and highest content sharing amongst users in the UK. It is an area that other galleries and art institutions have started to utilise so it makes sense for the Arts Council collection to do the same.

- Gracie & Elliott

How Successful was The Snapchat Filter?

I think that the snapchat filter was the most successful idea that we created for The Arts Council collection , we created something that they would never have considered themselves. Which I think is an important aspect because that is why they brought us in to help with the project. It is such a simple yet effective activity that The Arts Council collection can customise to look how they want and will move easily to the other galleries where this exhibition is being held. This activity works as an important marketing device for the gallery. It enhances their reach on social media and boosts publicity which will spread the word about the upcoming exhibition and increase the number of visitors coming to see the show. Not only that, this activity works on engaging with teenagers and young people, an audience that they haven’t really focused on before.

- Gracie & Elliott

What is the Value of The Memory Wall?

The value of the memory wall being put into the activity space is that visitors can leave their mark behind by adding small but moving statements.

These statements are made for other visitors and the Arts council to get a feel and imagine what this exhibition means to other visitors other than themselves.

As well as getting visitors to reconnect with their past memories and it reconnects children and adults to converse and make new memories themselves.

Involving every age group so that they are all included, we have successfully done this by having a range of questions to suit children and adults even if they don't know what the 90's were like, they can tell us what they think those years were like.

- Laura & Becca

How Successful was The Memory Wall?

The memory wall has been successful in a way that ideas have been taken from it to be used within the gallery/ exhibition. The arts council decided to use our idea of using the idea of having notes to write onto for visitors.

The idea was to let visitors answer one of the questions that would be printed onto the cards so that they can leave fond memories within the exhibition.

This way the notes can be transported easily with the exhibition across the country.