#i had been unhappy with the way she played messenger between people in the store and spread info around

[lizbethborden]

Oh man. Thinking so much about one of the people I worked for at the hellhole. She would get wound up and go off at me in a completely vicious way. I am not really a person who yells or gets angry in those situations, my goal is always to deescalate, so I would yes her to death rather than respond meaningfully--and the one time I did try to push back on her on something she was pissed about, she overrode me repeatedly and started accusing me of "defending" the person she was mad at (I wasn't, I agreed with her criticism, I just was a decent human being with empathy for others' situations). What I really should have done was either yelled back or walked away, but I always defaulted to yes'ing her, especially because she would wait until we were in my small, enclosed office to do it and I would have no way of getting away from her. I found out that she HATED that I would always go "Okay" and "I understand," because I would just do it and do it until she stopped, and she said it "makes people feel criticized." If you don't want to feel criticized, don't behave that way...? Between her and the owners, I got yelled at more in like 10 months of working than I did in 3 years at Starbucks.

[dannygrose]

Client Studies Module - Exhibition Assignment (part 1/3)

September 25th, 2018

The Brief

Our brief was as follows; “In groups, you will organise and curate a pop-up exhibition to held over 3-7 days at some point between the 9th and 26th of October”. The teams we would be put into would be responsible for everything that consists in conceptualising, producing and executing such an event.

(An image of the brief is just above)

During the introductory lecture with Sarah, after explaining our seemingly monumental task she continued to give examples of past exhibitions held by prior student bodies and she began to give planning tips and ways to help us structure the tasks we needed to accomplish and in what order/succession of each to each the most cohesive and effective plan of action for our exhibition.

Once we had been divvied up into our two teams we were advised to convene amongst ourselves and begin to allocate roles based on our skills, desired area of interest or, in some cases, necessity; as some areas/roles needed an minimum body count to effectively function and/or to avoid the over saturation of minds in other areas. An example of this level of intrigue was seen in such roles as “Branding and Design” and “Promotion”; drawing quite a lot of attention from the group with those areas having those involved almost solely in the creative element and visual side of the overall project (aside from the individual artwork we would all later produce as exhibits).

(These are roles we were to allocate to ourselves within our groups to achieve success in our assignment)

My Team

As a group we began to decide who was to be in what category of role and proceed from there. 

The more vocal of the group initially took charge of the “voice” of the group and began to call out the role categories and whoever seemed interest in the area of work would proceed to make their interest known. We did this until everyone was in a category and, as stated before, there were imbalances in the roles so we decided to let people volunteer to fill gaps until eventually our needs were met. Granted by the end of the “deciding” I’m sure there were some people who were unhappy or not as thrilled with their specific area but this couldn’t have been helped.

An example of this was myself. I was made to locate myself within the role of “Location and Logistics” and although I do believe I offered some sound advice, reliability and took initiative when required I still believe that my skills would have been best put to use in the areas of branding and design or promotion. Now, this sounds like a generic and cliche retroactive response to the situation but I genuinely believe I would've been a far greater asset to myself and the team if I involved myself within the design and image element of the project but unfortunately that wasn’t the case and I only have myself to blame as I didn’t make a good enough case for my claims or put up much of a fight on that front.

We had initially began brainstorming ideas themes for the the exhibitions. We even played with the idea of choosing a title first and then evolving the concept from there. Another avenue we though of was to make the exhibition a non profit event and to raise money for a charity, which in turn, would act as our theme. Even with all of these ideas and us seeming to be on the cusp of progress we were advised by Sarah and as a group agreed to make tangible progress by brainstorming locations for the event as that was deemed the most important aspect of the process and would hold the most power in dictating all other aspects of the project; timing, curation and work limitations, budgeting etc.

My Role

As stated before i had been allocated to the role of “Location and Logistics”.

As a team we pulled together about 20 different locations we knew of that could be possibilities for the event; ranging from independent shops and stores to established places of business and interest. Some from individual expedience and others from information given/learned from past student bodies.

Even though we had allocated a few people the role of finding a location and securing it, as a team we chose to pull our effort as a true team and decided to separate for lunch and if anyone had a contact or in with possible location on our list to take the initiative to act on it and show interest as soon as possible. We decided to meet back up about an hour later with our results in which numerous of us had visited locales and even emails/contacted places of interest.

(Screenshots taken from the Facebook messenger chat we had set up)

Throughout the rest of the day we had constant contact with each other within our group chat. The focal topic being cutting our list of possible locations. Which with the majority of us being involved meant that we were constantly removing and adding new locations with every update via people emailing, direct messaging and directly visiting the sites of interest.

Locations such as Tiny Rebel, the Old Library, Flamingos, Cardiff creative and even the arcades were on our radar for possible exhibit sites. 

In reflection of my own actions I believe that i wasn’t, personally, giving everything i could have in the situation at the time. When it came to casting votes or decision making i was as vocal as any but as for initiative or acting instinctively on actively seeking out locales I seemed to take a back seat (like quite a few of my less vocal classmates within my group) as there was a definite driving body of students within our group that were leading the location hunt charge; to name a few would be Freya, Rae, Lucy, Lleucu and Elena (A fellow associate in the “Locations and Logistics” role).

I had been in close contact with Elena who was allocated the same role as I and together we decided to begin investigating and checking out the supposed front runners for our locations. The main one of the first day being Big Moose just off of the high street. I had visited it myself and later met up with Elena and others to discuss my opinions and the logistics and details of the place etc.

September 26th, 2018

As the second day progressed we seemed to settling on two locations. Bug Moose and Castle Emporium. Big Moose, although meeting our initial idea quota for having our exhibition and theme relate to a charity it unfortunately did hold up to the size and display space of Castle Emporiums, which not only dwarfed the just coffee shop but the space has had countless exhibitions and shows put on of this calibre and style and a wealth of knowledge and resources at our disposal, them being literal resources or the employees that worked there.

(Here are some initial shots we took of the space at Castle Emporium we were considering at the time)

Upon our first visit and contact with Castle Emporium Freya decided to enquire personally on behalf of the group to secure information and discuss prices etc.

(Above is the response The Sho Gallery at Castle Emporium send to Freya after enquiring about the space detailing much needed information)

As we continued with our search for the perfect or better described “most ideal” location we continued to throw Ideas back and fourth as a group in hopes to unanimously agree on an agreeable topic/theme which isn't too vague but at the same time isn’t oppressing/restricting anyone creatively.

In amongst this flurry of emails and decisions we set up resources such as google drives for work to come, Facebook pages and polls helping us decide themes and locations to come.

September 28th, 2018

Finally! We settled on a theme and that theme was “Nostalgia”. It was just vague enough for all of us to creatively latch onto whilst not leaving us into the dark; many of us would create sub themes or genres within the theme of nostalgia based around our childhood, toys and games and memorable media from our past that shaped us or held importance in our lives at a time.

The Brief Set Ourselves

“The name of the brief is ‘nostalgia’, it is a broad theme and can be interpreted however you choose; this could be childhood nostalgia, the concept of nostalgia, memories, history- however you want to interpret it! You can work to your own dimensions for the piece, but there is a size limit of an A3 frame (30cmx40cm/16”x12”) for the sake of sharing the space with other students and making sure everyone can have a piece up. We will be framing the pieces as the exhibition will be up for a week and the gallery has recommended this. Everyone must provide their own frame, in whatever style they like, but it must be black. If you are mounting your work within the frame, it must be on a white background. No frame can exceed this size, if it does you will risk your piece being cut from the final exhibition. Everyone’s piece of work will be accompanied by a small information card with your name (or preferred pseudonym). It is up to you to provide your own business cards and/or merchandise if you so wish. The deadline for your finished piece is Friday 5th October 05/10/18 and must be uploaded to the google drive provided in the Facebook group. Please also have your frame ready by Monday 8th October 08/10/18 so we have the week to get everything done. Good luck guys, have fun and please send progress and WIP shots to the promotion team so they can share it!”

We decided that to efficiently move forward and not waste time whilst securing a location was to set a brief for our exhibition artwork/pieces to be finished and available by a certain time to ease the tasks fro the curation team when it came to setting up the exhibition space and making sure all pieces are accounted for etc.

In retrospect I feel we should have either focused on finalising and securing a definite location OR quickly deciding on a theme and thus producing a brief for the rest of the group to engage with. As having both up in the air the same time or allowing one to overshadow the other in a seesaw like fashion constantly stopped and started the entire operation and kept us from making more efficient progress. If we were to do it again or if I had full control over the situation as a Project Manager I would have set deadlines for particular aspects of the project to be met i.e. the location before theme or and content, then artwork brief and so forth. All of which to ensure efficiency and a reliable time frame of completion.