FACT! First Shift

T-shirt logo- taken 11/06/2015

Hellooooo,

So yesterday was my first shift at FACT, and the entire morning seemed to saddle me up ready until I started to worry what the day would bring...I had two jobs I had to get to, both in different parts of the city center, I had an hour to get to town and meet up with a friend beforehand with only 20 minutes to spare before starting this new shift. Most of all I was really excited about starting there because the team are great and I've gotten to know the exhibition and the artists in residence quite well since the launch night last week on Thursday 4th June. So I had nothing to worry about.

Thinking back to how yesterday went, I'm surprised how I managed to keep enthusiastic through each 5 hour shift! Most of you would wonder how I didn't sink down and die because I work everyday doing something entirely different, but I've figured that working in many different places in one day could be good because your introducing yourself to a new character and taking those good vibes to your second job without focusing on the negative side of the other job.

As Joan (Visitor Services) says "You are the eyes and ears of Fact". Looking after the gallery spaces means looking after two things - people and art works!
Which mainly grasps the main duties I did yesterday although I was all over the gallery firstly on the front desk using a front of house approach to all visitors and being the key staff member for answering inquiries and purchasing any exhibition catalogues. It was challenging at first because I didn't know how to proceed on answering questions regarding previous exhibitions or film times for the Picture House cinema as I only just started :/ pointing them in the direction of the box office seemed like a good way to go.

Swapping gallery duties with the other volunteers also gave me an understanding on the different types of activities and art works I could help assist the public with. This made the day more enjoyable as you weren't stuck in position for the full 5 hours! *bored easily

Another thing I had to take part in was the feedback session from what we all thought of the gallery, curatorial aspects and the exhibition itself. I didn't want to put down the exhibition but I believe that it could of been more for example, Rachel Rayns Raspberry Pi Foundation on Neurotic Machines (2015) was the frontal approach for interactivity for the public (mentioned in my last post) and it makes the exhibition start off from being very exciting and makes people curious about whats in he next two galleries. What I found the downside of this was, was that in gallery 1 it introduces artists work that have all used their surroundings to create their imprint of art. Artists such as Linda Brothwell "Acts of care", DoES Liverpool with their Raptor Hand by "Desktop Prosthetics" (2015),  and the Will Shannon and Assemble's "Homework Yard Factory" (2015).
I found the gallery to be on point as the artists as a whole all entail their artworks to have a similar purpose, however i feel that they didn't have the oomph of the exhibition title "BUILD YOUR OWN" whereas the public will need to be involved as suggested in the exhibition handbook " working with individuals and communities in Liverpool and Norwich, these four new projects explore different kinds of participative encounter..." Which kind of suggests to me that FACT is setting the stages of just fitting in with the usual gallery activities like Tate, just letting visitors walk round a gallery with no means of participation by the audience.

Although I've been quite hard given my opinion I believe that Fact should at least allow a professional member of staff present throughout Gallery 1 exhibition to show the public how to use the printers, what they can do and how to create 3-D objects, as i feel it would give them a introductory understanding of the exhibition and how they can get involved in using them on a frontal approach basis before entering Gallery 2. Moreover, they do allow this in Gallery 2 on the first floor of the gallery but I believe from starting off on the ground floor to an interactive knowledgeable piece of work and developing onto more works that show no interactive purpose to the public...just sounds to me like are they aware of the settlement? Is it supposed to have a fluke of non interactivity and then an approach to the more better works? *Better works meaning the fun ones compared to the do not touch pieces of work.

Overall, I had a great day understanding the exhibition and gallery more and talking to the residential artists about other projects they're planning on doing here at FACT and how to get involved. From my feedback I've stated on here don't push off the exhibition until you can see it for yourselves and then you decide whether or not you can agree with me.

Until next time,
Nads :)