Since the beginning of second year, it was clear that our year
were really extra in whatever we were exhibiting and we wanted full control of
everything to do with this. Because of this, we decided that we wanted to do
our own degree show exhibition in London, separate to other courses within the
school as we wanted our chance to show off our work on our own terms and be
able to say that we have done it all off our own back. The people who
volunteered for the London degree show exhibition team were very similar to the
ones who curated our third year show for our first project, so we all knew that
we could work together really well and knew exactly what we needed to do
because of previous experiences. With this in mind, we started to look at
venues within London, particularly ones that were well known and in good
locations to make sure that we would get the best exposure possible for our
work. After
doing a lot of research on different gallery locations, we decided that we
would look at Bargehouse, a gallery that has been previously used by Bath Spa
University and used by last year’s Photography students. As we knew this had
been used before, we decided that this would be a good start to look at so
Laura and I volunteered to go to London and look around it for the rest of the
year. This was back in January, so we actually started thinking about and
looking at locations really early on in the year because we knew that degree
show season was coming up and we wanted to book in early. It was a huge open
space over five floors, when looking around we couldn’t believe how big it was
and how much space each of us would potentially get.

In the
end, we decided not to use Bargehouse because it was too big for the amount of
us that were exhibiting and we decided that it was too much money to raise with
the additional costs of everything from then until when the payment needed to
go in. We started brain storming more places as an exhibition team and decided
to look around galleries that were popular for other students to leave. With
this, Laura went to visit Candid Arts Trust in Islington as we saw the
photographs and information on it and decided that it would probably be
suitable to our needs and what we wanted to do as an exhibition. After she visited,
she sent us photographs of it and we decided that it would be a really good
space for us as there was an option to take both of the floors to give us an
even bigger space and room for each of our projects to breathe.

We
provisionally booked it and told everyone who was interested in exhibiting all
of the details and that we would need to raise £8000 in order to be able to do
it. We all put in a £40 deposit so that we could secure the place and then
started to fundraise. As an exhibition team, we were constantly making sure
that people knew exactly what they were doing throughout the process and how
much we had to raise. We decided to book it for the end of June (23rd-26th
June) because we wanted to be included in the degree show season in June where
many photographer’s, magazines and editors would be looking for new talent.

In terms
of fundraising, I was in charge of organising and running two events; the pub
quiz and the drag night as I organised to hold both of them at my work, St
James Wine Vaults. Although this was really hard work alongside completing my
projects, I felt really good as soon as they were over and felt as though I had
accomplished something and had a good input in the fundraising of our degree
show money. This was the same for a lot of us in the exhibition team as we all
put a lot of effort into the fundraising of our show, including events like
clothes sales, cake sales, pub quizes’ and Lucy Robert’s even raised money
through a sky dive. This was all really important in the progress of our London
degree show because we decided to book two floors of the gallery space as we
didn’t want to compromise on our spacing like we had done in previous
exhibitions; we wanted to make sure that the spacing would accommodate all of
the work that we had worked so hard to complete. We knew that this would be
more money but because we were committed to raising it, we knew that we would
be able to pull it off.

Recently,
we found out that we have managed to raise all of the money for our London
show. We knew at the start that this would be a really big task, especially
because we were having to focus on our final major projects alongside the
fundraising. I feel as though this is why we were so happy and relieved when we
finally raised all of the money. People have been so generous since we started
the crowdfunding page and we have all said how much this whole experience has
taught us. I know that the skills that I have learnt from being a part of the
exhibition and fundraising team will be ones that I will carry with me
throughout my career and looking back on this part of my university life, I
wouldn’t want to change it for anything now.

Moving
forward, we are now in the process of finalising our prints for submission and
thinking about the final output of our work. Personally, with my project, I
have said all along how I wanted to make an impact with my work because it is
something that needs to be shown to the public. With this in mind, I finalised
my project with a newspaper because I wanted the suggestion of ‘throw away
words’. As well as a physical publication, I also wanted to make an impact with
print and give people something impactful to look at. This made me think about
how I could be individual with the output of my work, so I spent a lot of time
looking into and thinking about different ways in which I could do this. After
going on the London March for People’s vote as part of my project, I saw a lot
of people carrying flags and banners. This got me thinking about the
effectiveness of flags and how they exaggerate what it was the people were
trying to say. With this in mind, I decided to print two of my portraits on
fabric to replicate flags and show them almost like political debate posters
and flags of politician’s. I chose to show a leave and remain voter to show
both sides of Brexit, doing so on cotton canvas 380 GSM material. Alongside
this, I will show a landscape photograph of Boston and the people within it to
show all of the sides of my projects within print form. This will be on a
sticky back material to replicate plastering on a billboard, almost like an
advertisement. These will all be alongside my newspapers which I have bought a
stand for to nail into the wall so that people can take them when they please.

I am
really excited to work on the shows and see the final output of all of our hard
work. We are all bracing ourselves for how much work will need to go into the
setting up of both of the exhibitions but with the experience that we have from
previous ones, we feel as though we know exactly what we need to do.