Future Foundations – Link Gallery Exhibition

This is an exhibition that I and 6 other Foundation students put on in the Link Gallery at Manchester Metropolitan University in March 2010; the first student initiated and organised Foundation Art exhibition in the space. We had to submit a proposal and have an interview about the work we were going to exhibit and how we intended to manage the set up of the space. We were in competition with other degree student submissions so we didn’t know if we’d be taken seriously as Foundation students. We submitted a well thought-out proposal however, which included artist bios, images, list of equipment, a design for each space and marketing strategy, so I think this must have helped to dispel any reservations as we were given the exhibition.

We decided to call the exhibition “Future Foundations” for, I think, obvious reasons. The work included had a 3D element in common but had been approached in a myriad of ways to showcase work from students on one of the best Foundation courses in the country.

My space exhibited my Snow Table project entitled “Snow Days” together with quality prints and the book documenting the progress. Alongside this I showed the two stop motion animations I’d done on my table.

The other students exhibited on themes of preservation, tumours, obsessions, death, breath and personal exploration. These were explored through textiles, film projection, illustration, body painting and sculpture.

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The students in Future Foundations were (in order on slideshow): Elisa Artesero, Helen Wheeler, Raisa Kabir, Sophie Bennett, Anna Jordan, Ben Lomax and Laura Teasdale.

 The exhibition was well received with many wonderful comments. We had a comments box to help to get feedback from people other than our immediate peer group which was of great use to our artistic development and to see what people liked about the exhibits.

 A couple of quotes from feedback my piece received:

 “I found the development that you observed in ‘Snow Days’ to be really interesting. It was cool how you had limited control over the outcome and how you embraced the results” 

“I really liked the honest, genuine approach to the work. It feels as though someone with a genuine spontaneous streak has created from nature and man-made to create a piece which has its own life and growth and spirit!”