Presentation Day

Today was our presentation day, I have been quite anxious about finally presenting my work as I felt that I was not as prepared as I would have liked to have been before the day of the show and after going to the other community project shows, I felt the pressure was on to deliver a good show to the patients we had been working with.

My initial idea was to focus on how Dennis felt about the past, he seems to have had a good life, but I could not help but question whether there was something he wasn’t telling me as all the trace of his life is virtually nonexistent. Was there something he was hiding? Would he just rather leave the past in the past? This is where my initial idea of using glass bottles comes from, memories which are trapped inside this bottle, which he is now unable to access due to personal choice. The memories are abstract and have been forgotten about, just the way Dennis wants it to be. I want to do an instillation which shows these memories personified. I have chosen to use glass bottles as Dennis has always liked a good drink and a smoke. I propose to hang the bottles as an instillation; these bottles will be covered in wax and will have lost memories trapped inside.

A couple of things were making me anxious I was worried about if we could get the whole show set up in time as we only had an hour and a half. I was also worried about if my piece would hang well and whether the tree would be strong enough to hold all the bottles. Furthermore I was worried about the response we would receive. I was also quite excited as we had been working towards this day for a long time. It was quite exciting to see how the patients would react to out responses to them to see if we depicted their visions accurately.

Luckily there were no problems putting up the show, though some people arrived a little early which was a little embarrassing. All the cakes and decorations had been put out. We all set up out work and I was happy with the position of mine, it was quite isolated, and the piece itself was simple. The contributions to the piece were made like I intended, I was pleased about that.

My initial worry about the bottles not hanging correctly was not a problem at all, although on the day I had to re do all the fishing wire as it was not long enough; luckily I had enough time to do so. It was quite complicated hanging the bottles as I had to find a branch which would hold the weight of each bottle without dragging the tree down, whilst considering the composition.

The response to the show was great; everyone found the work extremely moving. ‘The outcomes were all very strong’; ‘the concept behind the work is great’; ‘the work is simple, though the concept behind the work is very deep and complicated. I was really pleased with the response as I have been very anxious about this show, as the outcome was not work I would normally imagine myself to produce, Never the less I was proud because me and Dennis had made it together.

I feel I did work collaboratively in this project, although it has been very challenging to met the collaborative working criteria after Dennis passed away, I want to take forward the work I was going to produce with him and did not feel it would be right for me to met a new patient and start something new as I had got to know Dennis well and we were both excited for the outcome that we would have made together if the circumstances had been different.

Although my piece was not technically a collaboratively piece as Dennis didn’t help make the whole piece. Though I would argue it still is to an extent because we both came up with the idea together and we would have made the piece together if circumstances had been different.

I am pleased with our outcome, I feel the concept behind the work is strong and it supports the piece extremely well which I am happy with. The piece itself is not that visually pleasing, but it’s simple which I intended it to be.

Overall this has been an extremely challenging project for me though I have really enjoyed it thoroughly. I have learnt a lot throughout the whole project. I have learnt a lot about community art and I am very interested in participating in more projects similar to this.