A brief that asks us to think about space design was a challenge. To do in the amount of time I did it in was another. The brief was simple, make use of the empty woodland area and create a secure display that’s creative yet simple whilst remaining practical. For this project, I worked with Anastasija Rakocevic. I’ll admit, I panicked over this one. It was during the duration of this project that my job had me work five days work and doing lateshifts, which made it almost impossible to communicate with my partner effectively. Our solution was to make morning phonecalls and discuss our steps. The first of which was making moodboards which we both did. Mines came out like that…
As I was making it, I scoured the Internet for outdoor exhibitions, light installations, land art and space design and the images that resonated with me the most were…boxes. I somehow felt that there was so much we could do with them and they could be placed in so many different ways. I also was really inspired by the stage with the shadow. That was when my first spark hit, I knew I wanted to create some sort of a platform in the little space patches but I still had no idea what to do for the sitting area and how to keep the art secure.
My partner and I had a phonecall the next day to discuss our moodboards. She seemed more keen on mine, her idea revolved around projection which we couldn’t do as the area has no direct access to electricity. Even though mines was picked, I still had no exact idea of what I was doing. I kept looking through the floor plan and the video provided for us but it still wasn’t clear enough for me. I couldn’t visualise anything. So I made my partner drive me to the centre so I could see and take photogrpahs of it myself. And sure enough, my idea finally sparked
My intention was to indeed create a stage. But put it into the centre of the sitting area, and literally have a performance and a large sculpture space. As for the little patches of space in the pathway, I intended on placing six wooden containers onto each patch and have it used as a safe and secure display for any artwork. This took me an entire week to come up with. I’m not proud of it, but It was a true struggle to come up with inspiration whilst stocking shelves.
I was keen on making the stages because I felt that it would be cost effective, realistic and secure. It met the majority of the clients objectives and it also would be quite an original and an unorthodox way of having an outdoor exhibition. It’s certainly peculiar which in all honesty, was all I was willing to do.
Another phone call later with my partner and we have delegated our tasks equally. My job was to design and illustrate the stages, create a social media giph for the launch, construct a budget and do half of the slides. Anastasija was to take care of launching the display through social media mockups and to do the other half of the presentation.
What i didn’t anticipate however, was that it would take longer to construct the budget than to draw and photoshop the illustrations combined. That was because in order to design a budget, you need to know the exact materials and the amount for everything you’re building. This took about three days and it was grueling, i finally remembered why I dropped design and manufacture in highschool. The good news is that the idea managed to stay well under budget with room for flexibility due to the cheap and recycled materials the stages require. Plyoood and pallets are never of short supply.
The next task was to illustrate my vision. This took a few hours but it was a pleasure since it didn’t require any thinking! I think the illustrations turned out beautifully and was even given great feedback from my partner who said they look like illustrations from Horrid Henry.
The boxes were designed to securely hold any artwork that are desired to be outside whilst being easy to move. My solution for that was to use magnetic painting fixtures from eBay and place them on each of the smaller doors and then locking the box at night using acrylic shatterproof doors which are perfectly see through with a motion detecting led light. I designed three boxes with easels fitted into them and another three fit to hold sculptures. The box itself would be kept in place by two wooden spike fixtures. Easy enough to remove when needed.
In full honesty, my main design flaw is that if it rained, the painting would have to be moved as the dampened wood may damage the painting. In future I would have used an aluminium sheet on top of the box instead of having it made out of all around wood.
The creation of the giph was easy enough and was completed without any challenges. I simply followed a YouTube tutorial on how to create a flickering light animation. I called our displays ” uncontained stages ” because of the idea that we’re coming out of lockdown, its spring and we’ve launched a new woodlands look. So basically, we’re coming out of a period in the world and its a new chapter in terms of the landmark art centre. I couldn’t think of a better/simpler way to launch the event.
Here are the mockups I created and photoshopped. My only regret is that I couldn’t find the time to photoshop any artwork into the displays to properly showcase its function.
I believe my partner did an excellent job at making the social media mockups and am grateful for her help in converting my daytime mockups to night time.
After all is said and finally done, I’d say Anastasija and I worked well as a team and would love to work with her again. We managed to maintain great communication throughout the brief and worked pleasantly well through mainly my mishaps and time consuming thinking process.
Portfolio of Mine- Gurlshan 