As part of our Re-Photpgraphy module, I was able to take part in a day of work experience at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery. We had the Bluestairs Gallery to hang our work in from the 3rd May to 29th June. As a group of 5, together we collected the work from the university building, we all had to get our images printed into foam board and satin finish with specific measurements. We took them down to the gallery, and with help from David from the gallery we were able to hang them all.
Firstly we unwrapped all the images and placed them on the floor to asses the amount and the types of images we had. We had two walls leading up the stairs, so we decided to split the images up into 2 groups. We chose to put the images together that had a complete image over laid in one group, and the other would be images that had a mixture of an old and new image in one. Some others did not fit into these groups, so we chose to put them in a group that suited best.
We measured the space, and decided to put the images 15cm apart from each other, with a 28cm space underneath the images. The images would be horizontal, even though the board is on a diagonal. We added 4 small pieces of velcro to the back of the pictures to enable them to stick to the wall.
We spilt up into two groups when we had established the best way to do this. We used pencil marks to make sure we had them all correct. We used tape measures and sprit levels to makes them 100% straight and correctly placed. I found this to be difficult at first, with the board being diagonal, it would put you off and sometimes the images didn't look straight. But in the end they all looked great together.
We felt the images we had put together all worked well, and decide the order of them being placed on the wall in a certain place. This side of the wall was the group of images with a full image placed over the top on the new one. We chose this order from the more severe image over laid, to the most opaque over laid image. This showed a gradient in the images, and looked really good together.
For the other side, we chose to order them together with what the shot is, where the image is set and the colours in the image. We added the name plates 1 1/2 inches from the bottom of the images. We felt this was a good space, and all the name plates were easy to read.
These images show the two ends of the wall, these images didn't fit perfectly with the images going down he stairs, but we felt putting them together worked well in this way. The last two images in the bottom picture aren't the same size as the others, but we felt putting them here they looked good.
We did have to make some decisions about some of the images. One image was badly mounted with a ver noticeable crease down the centre of the picture, and the edges were not cleanly cut. We felt as a group that if we put this picture in the gallery it would stick out, and would bring down the quality of the over all exhibition. This made us think about our professional practice, and if it was our own image, would we be happy to have it on the walls. It wasn't an easy discussion, but in the end I feel we made the right one.
I very much enjoyed putting this together, and seeing the work that goes into creating an exhibition. Even thought we only spent the day in the gallery, I can understand all the processes that need to be taken to put something like this together. I would like to do something like this again in the future.
