Degree Show Season: Diaries of a 2nd year helper
It’s coming up to the end of the academic year- and for many 3rd year students on creative courses that means preparing for their degree shows and exhibitions. Here on the Fine Art BA at Goldsmiths the install is well under way, and that means totally re-arranging, re-painting, and re-decorating all three entire studio buildings! So, while 3rd year students get ready to present their final masterpieces, what do we do as 1st or 2nd year students to help them out?
So, firstly, a background on how the whole system works:
In your 1st and 2nd year, you are required to help out a specific 3rd year as part of the course, meaning that each 3rd year student is given two helpers each to assist with their installation process. You have the choice to pick who you work with, or you will be randomly assigned. I always recommend picking a friend and/or someone who’s art you are really interested in, since you will be closely working with them. It’s good to see it all as revising for your own degree show- although it may see far in the future, it comes quickly, and getting to help install two other student’s work before having to do your own is a really valuable experience. Similarly, it’s important to take the opportunity seriously, and remember to be a good helper!
If this doesn’t sound like your speed, you also have the opportunity to apply for a crew position. Although unpaid student helpers do a lot of the work such as painting the walls and actually installing the artwork, the crew is a paid team who do most of the hard labour, such as moving around the walls in the studios and doing any of the serious repairs required. They are employed for the whole summer and help out with both the Undergraduate and Postgraduate degree shows, before resetting all of the buildings so they are ready to be studios again. It’s amazing job experience!
Pre-Show Prep (15th April til 5th May) - Helping my 3rd year with film shoots!
This year I agreed to help my friend Yanyi ‘Cyan’ Chen with her degree show project, and before even getting access to her space for the installation of her physical work, this included doing several film shoots at different locations. I helped with two of these shoots, one of which took place on a beach- we travelled there on the train with all our supplies in a big suitcase and an Ikea bag! Although it was a long day with lots of hard work (especially carrying all the bags to the top of the sand dunes) it was really fun to have an outing with friends where we made Cyan’s artistic vision come true… and we went for a tasty dinner afterwards!
I took my cameras along and took some pictures of my own to remember the day:
Week 1 (6th til 10th May)- Moving out of your studio
The first proper step in starting with the degree show is packing down the studios, which can be quite a difficult task! We have all been using our studios almost every day since last October, so most of us have accumulated quite a lot of stuff- all of which needs to be sorted through, packed up, and taken home until next year. Being in London, nobody drives, and so it usually takes a few trips on the bus or the train to shift all of our belongings! For me it took two trips and the help of my partner to transport everything on the southeastern railway… it was hard work!
After all of the buildings are emptied on Friday the 10th of May, the Crew start work the day afterwards, removing all the furniture and beginning to re-arrange all of the cubicle walls in accordance with the curation plans for the show.
Week 2 (13th til 17th May)- “Making good”
Making Good is a term you might hear a lot when you’re beginning to install a show. In this context, it essentially is the process of restoring the space to be a clean gallery for the degree show artwork. It usually refers to filling, sanding, and painting the walls. This is what the first week of prep will consist of: first sanding down any lumpy bits on the walls, then filling in any holes with wall filler, then waiting for the filler to dry and sanding it again, then finally painting over it again. It’s quite a monotonous process but can also be a really fun group activity, with many people bringing in speakers to play their music and working collaboratively.
This year, I have been working in the Church, where my 3rd year has an entire room to herself (due to the scale of her artworks). My process this year was a little different than normal, because my 3rd year was planning to cover most of the walls with black fabric in order to keep the room dark. We didn’t have to be as precise as usual, knowing most of it would be covered up, although we had to paint parts of the wall that weren’t possible to cover with the cotton, and also paint the floors.
I went to visit some of my friends who were working in the Baths (Laurie Grove Baths Building, LGB) who were also “making good” with their third years!
Week 3 (20th til 24th May)- Installing the masterpieces!
This week is where you see the exhibition really coming together, as now the spaces are clean and tidy, it’s time to start installing the artworks!
In order to show Cyan’s video works, she decided to construct three big projector screens within her space, so I spent a day helping her polish and clean the metal frames in our Metalwork APA (Art Practice Area, or workshop).
We then carried them back to the Church, and constructed the frames in her space, before finally adding the screen fabric and having the crew help bolt the frames to the floor so there would be no risk of people knocking them over at the exhibition. Finally, we spent some time testing out the projectors and their positioning, before having the crew help bolt them to the ceiling.
We also did the same for the speakers, which will be used to play an ambient soundtrack in the space.
By the end of the week, we were nearly done!
Week 4 (27th and 28th May) – The finishing touches!
This week, there were only two days to put the finishing touches on Cyan’s work before it was time for her to submit it for grading! We spent the time really making sure everything was ready, all of the projector/speaker wires were out of the way and hidden, hanging some final pieces of fabric work on the walls, and adding a final coat of paint to the floor.
After leaving on the 28th of May, Cyan will get a little break while the tutors walk around the spaces and assess all of the 3rd year student’s work. Then, on the evening 13th of June, the show initially opens for a Private View, where friends and family can come and celebrate the opening of the show!
After this, the exhibition is open to the public from the 14th to the 16th of June, so you can come visit and get a look at all the work yourselves!