Professional Practice and Employability Workshops: Understanding Exhibition Opportunities

What's the point in putting your work into an exhibition?

• Network with those interested to see your work
• Building a presence/brand
• Political view - raising awareness
• Form of payment

Why submit your work to magazines and online publications?

• Gets your work out there and seen by professionals

Enter competitions and get your work published by magazines and online publications!!!!

Visit the year 3 page VLE to find a list of exhibitions. 

Think about what context you want your work to sit in?

During the session we were given a book featuring previous exhibitions and the work present within them. We had the Uncertain States from 2016. With the image they were beside a piece of text explaining in short what the image/series was about. Some of the work I read through seemed really interesting and I noted their names down in hope to discover more about their work. I also felt that some of the images related closely to my subject of loss/grief and it was fascinating to see peoples different perspectives of the subject. 

Adele Watts spoke about her mother grieving from the loss of her dad and how she would try to keep him alive in her head and heart. However when Adele turned 12 she also lost her mother, but it wasn't to death. She speaks as if her mother is no longer who she thought she was and doesn't want a lot to do with her now. 

Alan Knox scattered the cremated ashes of his grandfather on photographic paper as Photograms which created a vision of the universe. I have two very different opinions to this idea of producing work. It's great and different however it's also really disturbing and I'm not sure how my family members would feel about me using my mothers ashes. This could push the boundaries for some. 

Some advice James gave us was to talk about what we are TRYING to achieve DO NOT tell them what it is. 

Also don't try to make the context of the image sound clever. Sometimes it can confuse the reader because it won't make much sense. 

Robin Grierson photographed his "mam on a ride out" simply because he photographed the things he loved such as his loved ones.

We then discussed our own work by asking each other questions about the current work we have been making for BA3a. This would help us get a better understanding of what our work is about. Here is the following notes taken during that discussion with Laura...
Summary of my work

• Formation & presentation of relationship with grandmother
• Textural qualities
• Considering nostalgia & retrospectiveness and comfort
• Colour reflecting warmth & underlying grief
• Considering relationship between photography & therapy
• Reflecting upon & taking advantage of the poignance & importance of this relationship

Looking back through these notes I noticed that in some areas I hadn't been very accurate and even answering them I was still unsure where I was going with the project even though I knew what I wanted to photograph. This task was very helpful and has taken me back to the first part of my project where I started to develop this idea and get to grips and understand where this project is going. With only a couple of months left until hand in I feel now is a good time to know where I am and get the images done ready in time for January.