We recently hosted a gathering of artists in the Project Ability gallery to discuss an upcoming exhibition in collaboration with Outside In.
The project involves the artists creating and curating artwork from two New Dialogues courses with Glasgow Museums which will go on display later in the year.
The artworks made are a reflection on the The Art Extraordinary Collection. Each artist has chosen different ideas and artworks to focus on, and each have created a small body of work in response to their research and reflection. The visit aimed to share information about our gallery, its role, function and generally just how exhibitions come together from concept to install. Later in the year the artists will be exhibiting at Project Ability as well as in Kelvingrove Gallery.
Morag MacGilchrist, a ReConnect artist at Project Ability, will be documenting the curation process in the lead up to both exhibitions. Morag can be seen in the second image above, holding up a piece of artwork.
Week One
This week the group met in person at Project Ability and saw the gallery space. Each member presented their pieces of work and talked about how they would like them to be showcased and in which venue. The staff of Project Ability were able to give detailed input into how we would be able to display work and what signage would be needed. We left with a positive outlook, ready to meet up on zoom for the next few weeks and begin to work on the written aspect of exhibitions.
Week Two
The group met on Zoom today to work on label writing for the exhibition at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Galleries. We utilised several different writing exercises to come up with various interpretations of our individual work and the exhibition as a whole. For the first exercise we split into pairs and each person spoke for 3 minutes about their work. Upon returning to the group we had to convey what we thought the others key messages were. Then we did some free writing about our own work before shortening it to the 30 word limit. Everyone is now very close to the final wording of their individual object labels. We also began some brainstorming for the exhibition title that we will continue next week when we work on the main text panel.
New Dialogues has been a nationwide, two year-project, made possible thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which saw Outside In work with Glasgow Life Museums (Glasgow), Glenside Hospital Museum (Bristol), and the Mental Health Museum (Wakefield). It has comprised of a programme of nine courses designed to equip artists with skills in research, interpretation and curation. The courses have resulted in four fascinating exhibitions showcasing works from the collections alongside responses created by participating artists.
This small group of artists has been working together since the start of the pandemic. You can view their online virtual exhibition which opened in January 2022:
With thanks to funders:
National Lottery Heritage Fund and John Ellerman Foundation Art Fund
And partners: Glasgow Museums, Glenside Hospital Museum, Mental Health Museum
