Who is the Work for? Who are the audience?
Firstly before considering a Viewer it is important to establish who the work if for as these two questions may have different answers.
The work may have already been created through one of two routes; the process of self-discovery and exploration, or be made to convey a meaning or message. The former can show a viewer the pure emotions and experiential content in its own merit while having been created for the individual. While the latter process can talk directly to the viewer, with the work be designed for them specifically to observe.
This notion of being ‘observed’ can be a particularly uncomfortable one, particularly with vulnerable people with low confidence and self-esteem and the whole process must be done sensitively and with lots of support. If this balance is right the individuals can gain a great deal from experiencing their work up on the sacred space of the gallery wall.
The audience can interact, bear ‘witness’ (Tschudin, 1999:44-59) and learn from the work themselves. In the same way art educators may show learners different modes of dialogue with art within museums, Interpretive, Thematic and Open dialogue (Hubard, 2010) can all be relevant in community arts too.
Who is interested in community arts?
Or, perhaps more importantly, who ‘should be’?
An exhibition can be an event; a moment to reflect on the hard work achieved and the challenges faced. This can be shared with family, friends, professionals and the wider community.
The difficulty can lie in how much the wider community does engage with such work; what barriers or perceived barriers there are and how potentially positive messages about mental and emotional well-being and healthy ageing can be experientially learnt through exhibitions and art.
Views on Ageing and Old Age
- The positive idea of the ‘public witnessing’ of older people’s work in a society that provides them with few social roles or ‘labels’ other than ‘ patient’ or ‘sick person’. Again, this develops the idea of individuals contributing to society – and “we are all the richer for it.” (Larson & Perlstein, 2003). Goulding (2012) also talks about passing on knowledge and making a valuable contribution to society (p. 221).
I personally also like the idea of us also highlighting older people as “community resources with wisdom and insight” (Larson and Perlstein, 2003) for all generations.
Children’s visual representations of older people are not wholly negative, and can include friendly attributes or, more interestingly; “heterogeneous and multidimensional views of older people” including multiples stereotypes that are difficult to categorise (Villar & Fabà, 2012; 829)
Sharing and Changing audiences perceptions
Potentially it can be about, how, as artists the work can ‘shake us up a little’ (Moore, 2003:164) and our perceptions, labels and expectations. - This is what the true focus of engaging audiences is about.
Display of the work
The gallery space can be a unique learning environment for everyone (Goulding, 2012) and be an opportunity to experience something new.
With creating an exhibition there are the practicalities of selecting work, putting up and displaying the work in the form of some overall narrative and discussion between the pieces. There is also the promotion of the work, and if it is to be for sale.
Greater Than the Sum
This was the first time the group had to consider an audience. They wanted their voice to be heard through their own unique styles of work, their favourite pieces of artwork and group pieces based around the theme of inspiration. They also wanted to share with other what ‘inspiration’ was for them in order for people to connect and relate to the work, but also the underlying process.
As I prepared for the exhibition I researched into other community galleries (darts, Eccles community gallery, Start in Salford), exhibitions and curatorial approaches (such as the wonderfully refreshing thematic approach of Cartwright Hall Art Gallery or Manchester Museum).
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