Evolution
I realised during the course of Sustaining Your Practice that the work I produced for Body of Work needed to evolve. The original eleven images highlighted the elements of Josef Kohout's narrative that I felt were important. These included the handwritten Christmas card that got Josef incarcerated in the first place; the behaviour of the guards at the electric fence and the target range; the unrelenting cruelty at the clay-pits and the medical experiments; and finally the diary extract 'Amerikaner gekommen' (Americans came). Once I began to think about hanging the work at the Pie Factory the physical aspect of the space began to take on a prominence that needed to be addressed in relation to the work. For one thing there was more space than I needed. I viewed this as a positive as I knew I could make more work to reinforce certain elements of the narrative or introduce new ideas. I was also able to include the physical props that I use as part of my working practice into the gallery.
This is my final post for SYP and indeed the whole of my photography degree programme. It has been a very enjoyable few years and I have grown as a creative person during this time. It has been great to attend official OCA study days and engage with fellow students both online and in person.
This work will be submitted for November assessment 2019.
I feel that the Target Practice work has certainly evolved since Body of Work and even moved out of the gallery space when I took one of the pieces on the 2019 Margate Pride parade. I have realised that a piece of work does not need to remain static over time and can be adapted to different outputs such as a book or an exhibition and beyond. I learned what worked well in the gallery space and maybe other elements that needed tweaking. Overall I really enjoyed making new pieces for the Pie Factory and the experience of hosting an exhibition for the week that it ran. I learnt a lot from it that I can take forward and put to good use.
'Josef'. Collage from folded paper triangles.
The 'March!' exhibition piece taken onto the street for the Margate Pride parade, 2019.
Publicity
SYP really pushed out of my comfort zone in this respect. I was not comfortable with promoting my work in the highly visible manner required for a professional exhibition. Being used to my OCA college bubble and the support of a like-minded peer group this aspect of the course was quite challenging. In retrospect I think I did really well in managing to promote my work both online and in print. I enjoyed devising a publicity campaign and thinking up ways to keep it fresh and interesting. My press release attracted the attention of the local papers and it was amazing to have my work so prominently featured.
'Target Practice' exhibition featured in the Dover Express and Thanet Gazette.
Using Social media for promotion was a challenge and took up a lot more time than I realised would be needed. I pushed out posts to all my social media platforms on a weekly basis that showed my engagement with my work and the exhibition planning and setup. A GIF promotional campaign was also designed that aligned my work with other visitor attractions in the Margate area. This ran on a Friday for four weeks before opening.
Promotional GIF for Target Practice exhibition.
My Kickstarter campaign to achieve part of the funding for the exhibition was a total success. Pushing myself to ask for funds in this way was one of the most difficult aspects of self-promotion. I wouldn't have entertained launching such a campaign had it not been for the SYP module challenging me to do so. It was very rewarding and gratifying to see that many people inside and out of the college wanted to contribute to the Target Practice exhibition.
My Kickstarter page.
Exhibition
Although I have tried to document all parts of the exhibition process during SYP there is nothing quite like attending the exhibition itself. I know from experience that seeing the work in a physical space is so different to an online blog post. Therefore I made a number of exhibition videos at the Pie Factory to talk about my work. These videos give a flavour of the venue, the work, and my process. They are also a useful record of the event and are uploaded to my website so that visitors after the exhibition event can access the work and find out all about the subject of LGBTQ hidden histories. This videos are very useful in this respect because a number of my social media followers that were interested in my subject matter but lived in other parts of the world were able to follow along.
I have linked to the videos here:
This is my final post for SYP and indeed the whole of my photography degree programme. It has been a very enjoyable few years and I have grown as a creative person during this time. It has been great to attend official OCA study days and engage with fellow students both online and in person.
This work will be submitted for November assessment 2019.
