AT LAST I’m on the train after a grueling 4 day ‘hang’ of our Leeds show for the Northern Art Prize. We are really pleased with the final result, but boy was it a slog.
It all came flooding back to me on day one when we arrived to find progress on our space a ‘little delayed’ about 6 hours into day one I was already reacquainted enough with the familiar pain of installing an exhibition to remember why we haven’t really had one for years! Making films can be exhausting hard work and emotionally grueling but it can also have ‘highs’ that I have yet to encounter whilst scrabbling around on a grubby gallery floor or trying to fix something to a high wall with inappropriate fixtures.
The worst thing is your knees … within about an hour of arriving Karen wished she’d bought her knee pads (which we did in the end purchase when we used to regularly install and de-install our huge Island model!) as you seem to spend an awful lot of time on the floor moving things about. You never have the right screwdriver and I think someone might even have pinched my tape measure.
Still as Matthew Olden would say ‘mustn’t grumble’ it’s finally up and it looks great even if we do say so ourselves.
A MASSIVE THANKS is due to the East Tilbury Bata Resource & Reminiscence Centre who have lent us much of their precious archive for the show, mixed in with the Bata-ville materials it’s made for a really interesting screening space/archive. Also due are thanks to Tim for helping with the hang and Sue Giovanni for her patient work on our new film ‘Little Deluxe Living’ finished late the night before we left for Leeds. Thanks to go to Andrew & John at Leeds City Art Gallery who soldiered on helping with our rather ‘unusual’ hang right up until the Private View wine started to flow.
Wish us luck, we’ve gone completely over board on effort for the show and there is a prize – as Karen keeps reminding me – “we’re in it to win it”!
Posted Thursday 22nd November, 2007 at 7:20 pm by Nina
1 Comment:
JUST TO PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
The conference was so full of content during the days that the only time I could do individual research into BATA architecture was after dark. So there I was minding my own business checking on the construction details of a BATA Grain Silo. It so happens that the younger elements were having a "rave" on the fifth floor of the ten storey building.
Well what did I find. Unlike traditional english silos, the Zlin one was based on the standard BATA rectangular block . So here we find three standard bays of 6.15 m square by ten bays deep. The side walls, usually windows, were filled in with only a fanlight row at the top of the walls.
No lifts were working, so I climbed slowly to the fifth floor where some sort of strange noisy ritual was being enacted. I was unable to climb up further to check the upper floors. What did I learn from this expedition - well basically that CZECH LAGER is best served cold !
"Uncle" Mike, August 13, 2009 00:03
Leave a comment >