AirSpace Gallery is embarking on a period of reflection and debate, in order to better understand the position of the gallery both locally and nationally. This blog is here to record the work carried out towards this.
With the opening of Stocktake only a fortnight away, exhibition preparations are starting in earnest.
One of the features of the Stocktake exhibition will be an area where visitors can sit comfortably and read some of the many words that have been written for and about the Gallery over the last 6 years.
We're building a bespoke bench made of the finest larch wood, from Andy Branscombe's own back garden. It's going to look great and it smells amazing!! The area will be heated, so it'll be nice and snug, and we plan to stock the area with all of the publications we've created and published so far, as well as as much of the evaluation material we can muster.
So, if you fancy coming in and having a read, on a beautiful bespoke seat, with a cup of tea or coffee, you'll be more than welcome.
There probably aren't too many people who would, hand on heart, say they enjoy a meeting - but they are a necessary evil in order to reach the crucial decisions to make an event happen.
What are the secrets to a good, effective meeting? From our experience at AirSpace, it seems that a fair but firm chairperson who will keep a bit of structure and order is paramount. That and plenty of caffeine and cakes.
Last night's meeting was to thrash out some ideas about the sorts of events we'd like to see populating our Stocktake period, how we can make best use of the digital media tools at our disposal and ultimately, how we envisage the Stocktake Timeline exhibition looking. This is a lot to get through in a two hour meeting, and, in truth, we probably didn't reach the end of everything that needed to be covered but plenty of good groundwork was laid and we emerged with a basic structure, a good idea about how the show will run...and an excel spreadsheet.
All successful organisations perform a regular audit - and AirSpace's first venture of 2012 is just that. Stocktake is a transparent audit, in the form a self-reflective artists residency, which will allow us a chance to "take stock" of what we have achieved over the last 6 years, but more importantly, to see what our strengths and weaknesses are in order that we can make the improvements necessary to continue to provide an effective and relevant programme of contemporary art for Stoke-on-Trent.
Over the next few weeks, we'll be holding a series of workshops, meetings and events, providing an open, public forum to feed into and create the critical evaluative content necessary to make the decisions we need to make. The residency process will last for about a month, before ultimately we aim to set up an exhibition, in the form of a timeline which will not only show our achievements to date, but will also lay out a vision for our future.
The process is designed to be open, collaborative and consultative, so everyone is not only welcome and encouraged to come into the gallery and see for themselves the progress and process of Stocktake and its organic growth toward the culminative exhibition,but also to contribute and input their own thoughts and ideas which will feed into our future. Tell us where we're going right and wrong, and what you'd like to see happening in the contemporary arts in Stoke-on-Trent in 2012 and beyond.
All of the developments can be followed here and at our website http://www.airspacegallery.org/2007/. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to drop in to the gallery where someone manning the designated hotdesk will be happy to talk to you - or alternatively, drop us an email at stocktake@airspacegallery.org
