During the Making A Mark activities on 9th June on the Flag Market outside the Harris Museum, something was also going inside the Harris on the 2nd floor. After persuading our friends at the Harris to let us have use of both 2nd floor galleries for the weekend, in between exhibitions, we issued a call-out to all our known artist friends inviting them to take part and bring along their artwork. It was very short notice but they of course didn’t let us down and we had a lovely diverse selection of artworks brought in on the Saturday morning for display.
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Managing to get access to the space on the Friday afternoon, we were able to hang some of the Oxheys’ artists work then to give more time the next day. Rather amusingly, the 3 female artists left with the job of hanging the exhibition only had 3 good arms between them as each is recovering from an injury of some kind, so hanging the show was somewhat a challenge. Even more so the next morning when we found the Harris caretakers had taken the step ladders away, then discovered our screws were too thick for many of the mirror plates on the submitted works. With so very little time we had to think on our feet a bit and use initiative, so we hope everyone appreciated the circumstances and time constraints under which we were working and still enjoyed the show and how we displayed their work.
Challenges aside, we got a show up and running in time and whilst it might have fallen a little short of our own installation standards, we were pleased with the overall result and thrilled with the response.
During the Saturday afternoon over 125 people came to see the exhibition and over another 50 came in on the Sunday. That is far more than we would have seen at the old mill in the life of an exhibition (outside a private view) so we were delighted. As was the Harris – it seems that was quite an achievement seeing as there had been so little notice and no advertising! Especially considering what a gloriously sunny day it was and all the activities outside. Everyone who visited was also impressed at the standard of the work and the variety. The comments in our visitors book were superb, one going as far as to call it ‘hippie chic’ – we’ll settle for that. Overall however, a number of visitors said how nice it was to see something a bit different in the Harris and that it was refreshing to see some contemporary art. Comments were also made on the simple hanging and how effective that was.
As quick as it popped up, it popped down again.
We duly packed up and were gone by 4pm on the Sunday afternoon, much to the surprise of the Harris staff, so whilst it was short, it was very sweet – the Harris have said they’d be happy to have us back again and if we can have a bit more notice next time we are sure we can put on an even better show.
Thanks to everyone that came to visit and especially to those who put artwork into it. We hope you enjoyed seeing your work on display inside the Harris Museum & Art gallery and we hope to have an opportunity to offer that again.
Included above are just a few of the photos of the pop-up exhibition and the works on display