In Context
Opportunities
Health And Safety Analysis
We were told that we needed to do a risk assessment of the exhibition site for health and safety purposes. Initially, we viewed the venue. A health and safety certificate is available, although it is not on display in the venue I believe this is a necessary item to be located at the entrance of the venue. There is a front entrance that does stick and could potentially cause an issue. The frontage of the building is glass, so we needed to be aware of that.
The one thing I noticed above all was that there were nails and screws on the floor. I swept my area of the exhibition space to ensure these were out of the way. When we started to set the exhibition up we used scissors and other sharp objects, these were out of the way once the venue was opened to the public. My suggestion to bring benches into the exhibition for the public and ourselves to sit down if needed was agreed. I was surprised that as there were few sharp corners on the benches, we should have got some safety corner preventers in case of falls, little children going into them and hurting themselves. I did check the flooring and trip hazards which could have been better, to my knowledge there were no wires, lights and plug sockets frayed or loose.
There were fire extinguishers which were the responsibility of the venue management. These were out of date, no first aid box was supplied (i bought a box of plasters for cuts myself). To my knowledge, no one was first aid trained and that should have been addressed at the beginning or at least it should have been suggested where the first aid people were who leased the venue.
The venue has an upstairs, with a toilet for our use only use during the exhibition. Obviously, the stairs could be a risk due to falls, clutter and lighting.
I also suggested that there always be two people present to man the exhibition at any time in order to allow for illnesses, accidents, toilet breaks and accountability. Alcohol gel was supplied due to covid and health and safety however no sign about masks were present on the door.
Analysis And Conclusion
This project has taken me all over the United Kingdom photographing different species of trees during different times of the day and night, in all types of weather. The time to travel to these locations clocked up the mileage on the car and the financial cost was more than I expected it to be. Was it worth it? I believe so yes. When creating this project and developing my idea I have learnt more about the history of trees than I ever knew, their growth, environment and how we can care for them in the long term. The trusts and people that look after them currently were more than willing to assist me with the questions I had for my research within this project and gave me useful links such as map locations. The trees worked well for my project on bullying, it showed the viewer everything is not what it seems.
The exhibition which was supposed to be a class venture in all the stages of planning, the organisation was done in a professional manner, on the whole however I am disappointed. The whole experience has given me an insight into the bigger picture involved with trying to work with others who may not communicate as well as they thought. Initially, as a class, I believe we were all happy at the beginning to bring our ideas and thoughts to the table. After a while, despite communicating these ideas, it broke down quickly and lost some direction.
There were disagreements, miscommunication and class members struggling to know where they belonged in this project. I definitely felt unsure where I fitted in, despite me trying very hard, I did lose heart. In terms of the practicalities of the organisational process, the main people who were involved could have communicated more successfully with those on the peripheries of the group. I do not think they communicated as well as they could and so they could have been more inclusive. Although the group’s time management was fine, it would have been helpful for the whole group to have met others involved in the exhibition, such as the woman in charge of the venue, sooner than we did unfortunately this happened until quite late on in the process. There were also some issues with sending out the invitations due to members of the group leaving. This may have contributed to the lack of visitors attending the launch night. More visitors may have attended had the invitations been sent out earlier, however, I was not given the opportunity of volunteering for this until one month prior to the exhibition.
The exhibition setup I felt worked extremely well on both the launch night and for the duration of the exhibition so far. It has been commented on by the viewers how the photographs worked well in square black frames along with the display on the wall being square. During Launch night I explained my body of work to the guests and sold some of my images, I was overwhelmed if I am honest about the positive reaction I got from the public. As I had no business cards for my exhibited work, on the days of curating it I handed them out to promote myself for further projects and followers on social media.
Honestly, I think everyone played safe with this exhibition. The initial idea I had of miscarriage and stillbirth would have stood out as all of our contributions were very non-controversial. It would have been good to have some content that would have got people talking. I think people liked the exhibition, but I think the more controversial the work, the more people will go on to talk about their experiences there. For where it was and the fact that it was a very family-oriented area, the subjects had to be chosen carefully and so it is understandable that the group made the choices they made, including myself.
Although I am happy with my contribution, I feel I had no choice to change the subject due to the position I found myself within the class dynamics over the last six months. In the future, I am still looking at doing other exhibitions where I intend to include more work that is more controversial. This would have to be in the right environment and area to get the effect I want to achieve.