Final reflections on the MA Photography experience

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As I come to the end of my MA course of study, I thought it might be useful to reflect on the overall experience and the Final Major Project.  It seemed when I began the course that two years would be a long haul, but now looking back I am amazed at how quickly it went by.  At the outset, I was a competent photographer but with no sense of what to do with my work and no real understanding of who I was as a photographer. I took photographs but had no real understanding of the discipline of photography and its history. I was in fact exceptionally naïve about what I was getting myself into at the outset of the course.

Thankfully, I was fortunate to be in a cohort with some extraordinary people who throughout the course have worked closely together challenging and mutually supporting each other. I can with complete confidence say that absent them this course would have been far less rewarding and I less successful.  The Cromarty cohort was instrumental in not only filling the curricular gaps, but in adding to the discourse and pushing beyond the demands of the course.  We were there for each other throughout to clarify, console, instruct, support and encourage.  The overall experience was far richer because of them.

I leave the course with a strong sense of who I am as a photographer and a clear artistic voice and identifiable style to my work.  I hadn’t anticipated how much my photographic skills would improve, but they have.  More importantly, I have learned to tell stories visually, and am able to conceptualise and realise work with clear intentions.  Sound and video recording and editing, sophisticated post-processing, book publication, exhibition design and curation, website design, blogging, and photographic printing are all now significant competencies.  I have gone from being the totally naïve student to one who has become a mentor for others in the cohort and elsewhere.  It is quite a remarkable evolution over the two years.

Each module of the course presented its own challenges.  Positions and Practice required a lot of catching up on Information Technology skills as I had never blogged, built a website or used many of the software applications that would be essential to the course of study.  And I struggled to find the point of critical theory and overly obfuscatory academic writing during that module.

In Surfaces and Strategies, I began to be more comfortable with the underlying infrastructural requirements (IT), and with the opportunities to tell stories and create publications began to hit my stride.  The reading and critical theory explorations became more intelligible and relatable, and I began to truly enjoy the research. I was challenged to think in new ways about photography in general and my work specifically. I continued to expand my skill set by tackling programs like Adobe Premiere to do video editing and Bookwright for publications.  I published my first book during this module.

Sustainable Prospects was something of a disappointment academically and fell far short of what it might have been, but it afforded me the time to expand my reading and research independently.  It resulted in my being particularly well prepared for Informing Contexts.

In Informing Contexts not only had I come into my own academically, but it is in this module that I believe I found my artistic voice and developed a style that was uniquely mine.  I came to understand who I was as photographer and how to fully conceptualise and realise a body of work.  I was no longer confused about what I wanted to photograph and how I wanted to photograph.  Every shoot was done with clear intent and the quantity of photos decreased by an order of magnitude and the quality increased by even more. The work straight out of camera was far superior to my earlier work and the rejection rate in post processing dropped to single digits.

Final Major Project proved a worthy culmination firmly based on the foundations that had been built in the earlier modules even as I continued to expand my skills by adding sound recording, mixing and editing and significantly improving my video editing skills.  I had been working on the same fundamental project throughout the MA although it evolved in response to real world impacts and my maturation as a photographer. I was able to synthesise and integrate work to tell a chapter of a story who’s ending is yet unwritten and will only be revealed as part of a much longer project.  The public outcomes for FMP employed a full range of skills acquired in earlier careers combined with those developed in the MA and resulted in an exhibition that fully realised the vision I created and of which I was extremely pleased and proud.

Was the course worth the effort required?  I believe it was.  Despite being in my mid-60’s and with no need to make a living at photography, I am very glad I undertook the challenge and believe I got a great deal from the course.  I have the luxury of pursuing my photographic work entirely on my terms and I am well prepared for whichever path I choose to take.  I have enjoyed the challenges, the comradery of my cohort, and discovery of my style and voice.  I expect those to continue evolve as well over time, but I am in a very good starting place at the end of this course.

MA Bibliography – Complete

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What is Repeat Photography? – Exploring Land Cover Change Through Repeat Photography (no date). Available at: http://denalirepeatphotos.uaf.edu/index.php/about-the-project/what-is-repeat-photography/ (Accessed: 20 June 2018).

The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents :: Artificial hells; participatory art and the politics of spectatorship (no date). Available at: https://content.talisaspire.com/falmouth/bundles/590c4a61646be007c630a054 (Accessed: 22 June 2018).

The Collaborative Turn :: Taking the matter into common hands; contemporary art and collaborative practices (no date). Available at: https://content.talisaspire.com/falmouth/bundles/590c9d26540a2665d636d414 (Accessed: 22 June 2018).İki

Deniz Arası – Between Two Seas – Home | Facebook (no date). Available at: https://www.facebook.com/ikidenizarasi (Accessed: 24 June 2018).

Highland fury as Trump rival drives golf course plan forward | UK news | The Guardian (no date). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/23/highland-fury-trump-rival-drives-golf-course-plan (Accessed: 25 June 2018).

Embo’s Coul Links golf course backed by councillors – BBC News (no date). Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-44537876 (Accessed: 25 June 2018).

Councillors defer decision on Coul Links golf course – BBC News (no date). Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-44371329 (Accessed: 25 June 2018).

Coul Links Conservation Case | Our Work – The RSPB (no date). Available at: https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/our-positions-and-casework/casework/cases/coul-links/ (Accessed: 25 June 2018).

Highland councillors defy their officials by voicing unanimous support for Coul Links plans | Press and Journal (no date). Available at: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands/1491262/highland-councillors-defy-their-officials-by-voicing-unanimous-support-for-coul-links-plans/ (Accessed: 25 June 2018).

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John Hallmén (no date). Available at: http://www.johnhallmen.se/2016/4/25/morning-stretch (Accessed: 8 July 2018).

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Explorations on the Concepts of Place and Non-Place

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Place and the concept of place has become an important part of my photographic work. I had a commonly held simplistic view of place for most of my life. Certainly, there were places to which I had a strong connection, and which felt quite different than places for which a connection was less significant or absent, but I didn’t really think beyond the physicality of the space.  A perfect example would be the difference in how I feel about the two places I own homes.  Dornoch in northeast Scotland is where my heart truly lives.  Of the 26 places I have lived in my life it is more home to me than any of the others.  I feel healthier mentally, spiritually and physically there.  In contrast, my South Carolina home is lovely, but I feel no connection to the place or anyone there.  I feel as alien there as if I had set foot on Mars and I am uncomfortable there. But the concept of place has expanded for me by reading the works of Marc Augé (2008) and Jim Brogden (2019) and I have found it has been key to informing my work in Coul Links.

We commonly consider place in terms of the physical; a space occupied by something or someone. Historically, before people were able to travel physically across the globe in hours and virtually across the globe in milliseconds, place was very much about physical proximity, about connectedness to one’s surroundings.  Marc Augé (2008, VIII-IX) notes that while “there are no ‘non-places’ in the absolute sense of the term” there are non-places in anthropological and sociological contexts and that ‘globalisation’ contributes to “unprecedented extension of spaces of circulation, consumption and communication.”

While Augé principally analyses place in terms of globalisation and urbanisation in a phenomenon he terms ‘supermodernity’, Brogden’s view is narrower and focuses on what he terms the ‘cultural erasure of the city’. Both accept that place has elements beyond the physical which are encompassed in the sociological and anthropological significance of spaces.  Both illustrate how more and more ‘places’ have become ‘non-places’ while also accepting that that status is both fluid and bi-directionally reversible, and to a degree subject to individual perception.

“If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place. The hypothesis advanced here is that supermodernity produces non-places…” (Augé, 2008: 63)

“We should add that the same things apply to the non-place as to the place.  It never exists in pure form: places reconstitute themselves in it; relations are restored and resumed in it; … Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations are ceaselessly rewritten. (Augé, 2008: 64)

Jim Brogden’s photographic practice focuses currently on the urban landscape and in particular those places which are essentially holes in the urban landscape; places where people once had a presence, and which have been abandoned.  He writes, “By discussing the significance of photographic representations in revealing the meanings attached to the visual evidence of human agency in non-place, I hope to show what people leave behind provides us with important information about why they left it and what it meant to them.” (Brogden, 2019: 111) Brogden’s notion of non-place differs from Augé’s, but both are rooted in the anthropological and sociological significance associated with spaces.

Both use the term palimpsest in their respective discussions of place and non-place.  Coul Links is a landscape that could well be described as a palimpsest.  It has had many uses inscribed upon it over the centuries. It has been a battlefield twice, in the 13th century and again in the 18th just before Culloden, a bombing range during WWII and a burial ground for surplus military equipment, grazing land, farming land, shooting ground, a tip, a tree plantation that has been harvested, home to a railroad through it, golf holes near the Embo school, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Protection Area and a RAMSAR Wetlands of International Importance treaty site, and likely other uses I have not yet discovered.  It was at one time key to the survival of many residents in the village of Embo, but in the past 50 years has lost much of its former significance to the local population.  It has fallen to neglect and the links land itself sees little human use. Those few who do still use the land do so almost exclusively at the perimeters and then only just.

I believe it is fair to argue that Coul Links while once a place of great significance to the villagers of Embo who survived from the land and the sea, the death of the herring fishing industry and the decline of the need to live from the land caused by taking jobs further afield has decreased the significance of Coul Links and it has become by either Augé’s or Brogden’s definitions a non-place.  It has been largely abandoned and left to rewild and to those that do visit it is often a transient interaction at the fringes.  But as described above, place and non-place are never fully formed and there remain some few people who have a deep and enduring relationship with Coul Links and for who it remains very much, a place.

I came to Coul Links in response to the new significance being attributed to it when a proposal was put forth to add to the palimpsest and build a world class golf course on the site. I came as a stranger, with no sense of its history and with some degree of concern for its future, but over the course of the two years I have spent roaming and photographing Coul Links, I have developed a deep connection to and affection for the uniqueness and complexity of the land itself and its multi-faceted history.  I am endlessly fascinated by the chameleon like response to the force of nature the landscape exhibits.  I am disturbed by the hyperbole and misinformation promulgated by the groups who have opposed the development and their failure to recognise the complex history the site has had.  And I am aware too of the environmental issues extant at this point in human history, both globally and at this place specifically, and the need to proceed carefully and sensitively with any future development.

The proposal to develop Coul Links has to a degree re-established its significance anthropologically and sociologically and begun the process of its re-emergence as a place.  It is something of a reversal of the phenomena described by both Augé and Brogden who note more places becoming non-places in modern society and this I think is an interesting point to note.  It has altered my thinking about Coul Links and when I discussed this point during my talk during my recent exhibition, I found it was the point that resonated most with the people in attendance.  Virtually all local people, they recognised how Coul Links had lost its significance over the years and the how the prospect of another layer on the palimpsest had altered the way in which the site was perceived.

 

References

Auge, M. (2008) Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. London, New York: Verso.

Brogden, J. (2019) Photography and the Non-Place: The Cultural Erasure of the City. First. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

 

Pictures at an Exhibition: Review of Mick Yates’ Unfinished Stories

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Unfinished Stories: Cambodia from Genocide to Hope by photographer Mick Yates opened this week at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Society.

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It is not an exhibition of ‘dark tourism’ and avoids the tropes commonly associated with stories about genocides. Rather one is confronted with a series of indexical infrared landscape photographs whose indexicality reveals exactly nothing of the story to the point that they almost become abstractions.  It would be quite easy to dismiss them as “just another landscape photo”, but that would be a mistake. They are each, on the surface, stunning beautiful images. They completely belie the fact that beneath the surface of both the image and the place itself horrific things have happened.  The incongruity is arresting. The viewer is pulled between the abstractness of the imagery and the concreteness of the accompanying Khmer and English words, which too are non sequiturs having nothing whatever to do with the photograph itself.

The photographer, through his long involvement with Cambodia and people like Keo Sarath and Beng Simeth involved in the rebuilding of the education system there, has captured in his imagery a metaphor of the situation in Cambodia today.  On the surface it is a beautiful and vibrant place, but just beneath the surface lurk and linger remnants of the horrors of the past, not only for those who were fortunate enough to have survived the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and for whom the memories are all too real, but for generations that have come since who had no first-hand experience. It sits like the skeleton in the cupboard everyone is too afraid to open.  It is like a filter that cannot be removed from the Cambodian lens and it still colours day to day life in palpable but mostly unspoken ways.

Yates’ interviews with long time friends, colleagues and survivors who now after more than 40 years are telling their stories for the first time allow us to begin to understand the horrors and the aftereffects of the genocide on Cambodia and its people.  It allows us to begin to make sense of the non-sequiturs in the images and accompanying words.

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This is an extensively researched project and the history placards and displayed ephemera help to contextualise the exhibition.  The book delves into even more depth on the history of the genocide, and its impacts on specific people as related through their stories of survival and the work they have undertaken since to rebuild an education system that was a principal target of the Khmer Rouge genocide. It is a beautifully designed and printed book which, while written in English, was printed in Cambodia as an important element of Yates’ overall project.

History placard
Ephemera display

The final incongruity involves the venue itself, decorated for the Festive season while displaying an exhibition about the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocide and its aftermath. Yet perhaps it too can be viewed through a metaphorical lens in that this season represents rebirth and renewal and is itself a great symbol of hope. Hope is what Yates, his family and Cambodian friends and colleagues like Keo Sarath and Beng Simeth have been trying to build for the past 20 years and that work continues.

Ashley Rose

6 December 2019

Mick Yates and Keo Sarath
Mick Yates
Keo Sarath

 

Creating the Immersive Experience

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One of the top priorities for my FMP exhibition was to create an immersive environment that engaged the senses and the imaginations of my viewers. To achieve this goal would require the right space combined with the right technology both married to a carefully curated collection of images and sounds presented/ displayed in just the right way.

The path to this goal began with capturing images, moving and still, that would support the final vision.  It also entailed recording hours of the sounds of the natural environment that could then be mixed and added to the video footage.

Upon entering the darkened hall, the visitor immediately encounters the sounds of Coul Links playing throughout the hall; surf, wind, birds, and sheep.  The large display fixtures stand between the doorway and the far end of the hall mostly blocking the view of the large cinema screen.  On each side of every fixture are photographs, individually placed and lit so that the viewer is presented with only the one image at eye level and of a size that evokes a sense of being in situ at Coul Links. The fixtures are set in a diamond pattern requiring the viewer to make their way around the perimeters of each unit and the installation as a whole.  On three walls, purposefully placed to emulate a random encounter, are the miniature collages of fauna and flora which draw the viewer in close to examine what they have found.  These miniatures seem in scale with the larger landscapes as if they belong together. The outer perimeter of the installation has photographs with views one would see from the perimeters of Coul Links just in the way that most people encounter the place.  On the inner walls of the installation are photographs of places unfamiliar and unidentified on the interior of Coul Links that few people would know or would have encountered.

After reaching the far end of the display fixtures, the visitor is presented with a large cinema screen on which video taken from a drone across and around the entire expanse of Coul Links is playing.  Sofas and tables and chairs invite the viewer to sit and relax while watching the videos and feel as though they are floating along above the links.

By creating an exhibition environment that stimulated visual, aural and proprioceptive senses, the immersive experience was achieved.

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Mick Yates – 2019
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Rose – 2019

 

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Rose – 2019
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Rose – 2019
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Mick Yates – 2019
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Mick Yates – 2019

Exhibition Comments and Reviews

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During the two day Dornoch exhibition a comment book was available for visitors to record their thoughts after seeing the exhibition.  Here are a selection of the comments received.

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Rose – 2019

“The essence of Coul Links is captured in every sense.” Mike H.

“Totally worthwhile historical document of a treasured spot in this area. Love the smaller collages of the wildlife against the larger landscape pictures.”  Matthew Harris, Professional Photographer

“From someone who knows Coul Links intimately, you have done the most wonderful job of capturing its unique essence.”  Viki M.

“What an amazing exhibition.” Lynne Mahoney, Curator – History Links Museum

“Thankyou for breathing life into Coul Links! You have seen its hidden magic…”  Jenny T.

“What a great exhibition!  I applaud your efforts to widen folk’s perceptions both specifically of Coul Links and more broadly about the whole concept of ‘sense of place’.” John Alderson, Chairman – East Sutherland Camera Club

“An incredibly well thought out and presented exhibition” Mike T.

“I loved the way you presented your photographs, it made them appear so real, like you’re actually there.” Alex D.

“A wonderful exhibition giving a unique insight into the flora, fauna and dunes which goes largely unobserved.” Anonymous

“You have revealed the unsung beauty of an otherwise ‘unknown’ landscape.” Alison D.

“An excellent display. Having been shown around the proposed golf course, your video has given me a new dimension to contemplate the development.  I look forward to seeing your further work on this wonderful site.” Barry K.

“Great set of images of a complex area giving me lots of food for thought on its future ecology.” Stan H.

 

Additionally, a couple of people took the time to write more extensive reviews about the show.

Mick Yates’ review can be found Beyond the Noise review by Mick Yates.

Patrick Argyle an avid local amateur photographer wrote the following review.

“I think there were two aspects of this exhibition that came together to make it work so well: the quality of the work on display; the way the work was presented. I greatly admired and appreciated the quality of the work, especially the still photographs. The images were beautiful and beautifully printed and presented. The use of images   of different sizes and presenting them either individually or in groups was very effective.  The layout of the displays throughout the room was done in such a way that I could spend time studying each individual section before being led on to the next in a natural and relaxed way. There was a real flow from one area to the next. I felt the use of   different media to present material was handled very cleverly, exploiting the strong point of each:

  • a small screen video presentation on entering the gallery gave an excellent overview and background and history of to Coul Links;
  • photos arranged to great effect, some large scale showing wide areas of landscaped conveying the atmosphere of the location, other large ones of small areas of the links showing detail of the land and it’s contents;
  • other walls displayed boards on which were presented multiple miniature photos on certain topics such as flora and fauna;
  • a projection wall divided in to quadrants, onto each of which was projected, simultaneously aerial film taken by drone  of the land showing it in the four seasons of the year.

Overall, I found the exhibition much more interesting than I had expected and you showed me beauty in Coul Links I did not expect to see.”

Matt Sillars – Lecturer in Photography University of Highlands and Islands & Chair, FLOW Photofest

Reflections on ‘Beyond the Noise’

This body of work takes an anti-essentialist perspective. It refuses to walk the easy path and set out opposing positions, in relation to the development of the links, by defining the characteristics of each and placing them in opposition to each other – and then simply photographing the stereotype. The artificial construction of identity, as ‘developer’ and ‘environmentalist’, is deliberately disrupted and the links are presented as a complex space with a complex set of uses by individuals, rather than by ‘bodies’ of people who are ideological positioned in a debate.

Seeing the links as a historical space and not simply as a contested contemporary site, reveals its relationship to people over time and acknowledges that it is not, and never has been, a space easily defined by the broad brush strokes of heritage studies.   In the photographs are evidence of human intervention, from the buildings, fence posts and pathways, to the plantations, monuments and open ground.  Each indexical of people engaged in labour, industry and lives lived. Although seemingly passive landscapes sculpted by the elements, they evoke a range of paradigms which privilege people over nature and speak of the dynamic relationship between land and people – the definition of ‘place’.

Foucault discusses heterotopias as places which exist in the world, but which are connected in ways to other places and spaces, by ritual, by use, by assemblage. The photographs of the links inscribe hetertopias of time and space. Time, where the landscape has collected the past and represents it in snippets and glimpses. Thus, the past is always present in a natural museum, whose rooms and glass cases are the dunes, grasses, embankments and plantations. Space, where the fragments glimpsed are of different uses, are different spaces – of industry, or leisure, or travel, of work.

The body of work challenges the normative view of the ‘environment in need of protection’, and through the use of video and drones, plays with understandings of reality in a vein similar to Baudrillard’s hyperreality, where the difference between fiction and reality is blurred. Understanding is mediated by drone and digital technologies and the links are artificially reproduced in ways that play with the internet mediated campaign instigated to ‘save’ them.  ‘Beyond the Noise’ references not just the ideological noise, but the digital noise of hyperreality and conspicuous environmentalism, which has almost replaced conspicuous consumption as the ‘right’ of the middle classes.

The body of work, quite bravely, argues that the essentialist nature of the debate is irrelevant and actually unworthy of the links, which have a heritage and have a future regardless of the slice of reality we are confronting today, now.

All comments and reviews published with permission.

Display Design and Construction

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When it became apparent I needed to have display fixtures that would enhance the viewing of my photographs and contribute to the immersive experience that I was trying to create, I had to determine what would be necessary, create a design and then either find someone who could fabricate them for me or a place where I could build them.  I also had to work out the lighting requirements and then source and purchase suitable fixtures as a well as a way to mount them.

Obviously, the size of the venue and the space available was a limiting factor in the size and placement of the fixtures.  I also wanted to produce large format prints at least A1 and potentially A0 which meant the faces of the display units needed to be at least 1 metre wide and for the lighting to be effective and safely out of viewers way the top of the need to be at least 2 metres high and optimally 2.4 metres high which would allow the photos to be further isolated from the surroundings in the viewer’s perspective, and would also minimise cuts since the stock size for ply panels is 2.4 metres by 1.2 metres.

Building these fixtures for the 13 large format prints and 3 collages of miniatures plus the video trailer that would be playing on a monitor as the first element of the exhibit would require a substantial amount of material, time and expense to construct so I didn’t want them to be a one-off use and needed to design them to be reconfigurable, transportable, and reusable. They also needed to be stable when erected so as not to create any health or safety issues and cost had to be a consideration.

I created design sketches and detailed dimensions as a basis for discussing the project with area joiners.  I quickly discovered that many of the areas joiners are flush with work and not available to take on my project and it also became apparent that only a joiner with a workshop could produce them with he consistency that would be required to assemble the panel configurations flexibly. Fortunately, I did find a joinery firm that would take on the work and which would allow me to participate in the construction.

The design consisted of 36 1m x 1.2m panels, 2 of which would be fixed together along the 1m side by a piano hinge to allow the panels to fold when not in use and unfold to the full 2.4m height by 1m width when in use.  This facilitated transport, handling and storage.  The original design had the panels then joined together in venue assembly with a series of loose pin hinges that would connect one panel to the next and allow for various configurations.  Unfortunately the variation in the wood and the tolerances required to mount the hinges so that any panel could fix to any other panel proved insurmountable and an alternative had to be derived.  I amended the design to use 45 x 45mm blocks from the same material used to construct the frames and bolt the panels together.  I resulted in limiting the future configurations to either 90 degree or 180 degree assemblies, but that shouldn’t be too limiting.

 

Once the panels were assembled, they had to be painted.  I chose to use a matte black paint to isolate the photo and minimise any glare from the lights.  I was able to source 5w LED spotlights that fixed with spring clamps.  I calculated that if they were mounted at the top of the 2.4m panel and extended out 750mm they would cast the correct amount of light on each photo without blowing out the surrounding area.  Each fixture would have a photo on each side necessitating 4 lights per fixture.  Each light had only a 1m cord so I still had to work out how to get mains power to fixtures.  Fortunately, the Dornoch Social Club had a number of overhead switched outlet that had been intended to service stage lighting at one time and with the help of a local electrician we were able to wire flex cable from power strips to the switch outlets.

Once the fixtures were assembled at the venue and tested it was time to hang photos  and get on with the show.

All photos Ashley Rose 2019

Venue Selection

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The choice of venue was a critical determinant in the in the design and curation of the exhibition.  There were two underlying factors that were key to and a number of secondary and tertiary factors that would weigh in on the final choice.

First, I felt strongly that the venue had to be reasonably local because the subject was principally one with strong local interest and those whose interests were most vested in the outcomes should have both first and easiest access to seeing the work.  Second, the venue had to support the creation of the immersive experience I hoped to create.

With those as the initial primary criteria, three possible venues were candidates; the Dornoch Social Club in the centre of Dornoch, The Embo Old School 3 miles to the north and immediately adjacent to Coul Links, and the Carnegie Hall in Clashmore 3 miles to the south which was also the site of the Government’s Enquiry Hearings in February and March of this year.

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Dornoch Social Club – photo courtesy Mick Yates 2019

 

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The Embo Old School – Rose 2019

 

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Carnegie Hall Clashmore – Rose 2018

 

 

Additional evaluation criteria

Factor Dornoch Embo Clashmore
Capacity for 100 people Yes No Yes
Ability to be darkened sufficient for video Yes No Yes
Wall space suitable for hanging No No No
Audio and visual equipment installed on-site Yes No No
Lighting conducive to exhibit No Yes No
Distance from most likely visitors Best Mid Worst
Parking Marginal but most could walk Limited Extremely limited
Entry flow control Yes No Yes
Kitchen/ Catering capacity Yes Yes Yes
Availability Limited Limited Limited

 

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Dornoch Social Club interior – Rose 2019
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Embo Old School interior – Rose 2019
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Carnegie Hall Clashmore – Rose 2018

All of these spaces are community assets and as such are heavily scheduled on a continuing basis for a variety of uses.  Scheduling was going to be a challenge at all of them.

Embo was recently renovated but the space was too small, was largely glass walls with no ability to darken the space, and video would have only been possible on the large television.

Clashmore is a lovely hall and certainly large enough to have allowed flexibility in the exhibition design.  It would have required hiring audio visual equipment and the colour of the walls in the hall plays havoc with the way the photographs would be seen.  It was also the furthest from the target audiences and would have required everyone to drive to a place with limited parking.

Based on the considerations above it was clear that no place was perfect, but the Dornoch Social Club was the best choice for a number of reasons.  Having cinema grade projection and sound systems and the ability to darken the hall was a key factor as was its location relative to most visitors and for me.  It was a space with which I was very familiar and because of my involvement with the organisation that administers it and the cinema club, I  had virtually unlimited access to the DSC as required to measure, plan, and test video whenever the hall was not otherwise occupied.  It also had an entry foyer adjacent which led into the hall at the end opposite the cinema screen which allowed me to apportion the space and control the flow into the exhibition.  However, lack of suitable wall space and poor lighting dictated that I would have to construct bespoke display fixtures and lighting to control how the work was viewed and to create the immersive experience I was seeking.

The size of the space was only just large enough to accommodate the display fixtures without interfering with the cinema projector, so planning had to be thorough and precise as dis the design and construction of the fixtures. More detail on that process can be found in a subsequent post on the Design and Construction of the displays.

In the end, the venue decision proved a good one and the extensive planning and subsequent execution resulted in a very successful event. It was unfortunate the venue was only available for two days, but subsequent to the Dornoch exhibition, the Embo venue asked me to bring the exhibition there.  It required a different approach and resulted in a more traditional gallery type exhibition, but it did get the work exposed to an additional number of people over the 2+ weeks it was on display.