The night event was held smoothly on Saturday night. Lots of artists and art collectors joined in the activity and showed their interests in those artwork going on sale. I went there at 4.30pm and helped the curator record, organize and post informations of artworks, during the period of preparing music and food for the later party, I was chatting with one organizer who was working for the Richmond Archive, she was an artist as well but now pays more attention to her own business, developing the ability of management and focusing on graphic design. In this casual talk, she shared the idea of reflecting the beauty of nature, animals’ behaviors by using several different types of machines, I never heard those names before, and had no chance to touch them.

Like what I have watched in the New media Gallery couple days ago, she mentioned one piece of her machines, which was similar to a light sensor, but the gap between each flash appearing to viewers was controlled by her computer, it is accessible to change datas in order to manipulate those brilliant light. It sounds really cool and charming for me, besides, we still discussed our jobs, she suggested more about experience of being an artist.

We know an artist is not only doing her/his own projects and then may send them to an exhibition or other places, so that he/she could support themselves financially. As an artist, it is responsibility to convey ideas which could advance people in the society. We should try our best to translate unusual concepts(only artists or people start doing arts could understand), and make them as normal knowledges that the public are able to approach. Importantly, we want artworks to be the inspiration to others, once beginners(like me)understand what they are doing for arts, thereby for society and culture, it is easily for people to accept artistic ideas which are thought to be weird.

I was taking photos for each visitor, one of them was my professor Barrie Jones, his photo was displayed on the night party as well. I continue doing my work and sometimes people asked me about their questions of selling and buying artworks there, so I was willing to give them instructions as much as possibly, it was happy for me to communicate with visitors and artists through the party. When I was talking within a group, I could always learn their speaking skills, to hear different experiences coming from each person. It reminded me of the plan and expectation for this course, there was slightly change from the beginning to now, an excellent artist should find a way to apply works to normal life, as long as we make it, the practice and experience of doing arts could open your mind to the world, promoting you to be a better person instead of  staying away from the public. I still worried about the financial situation of making my artworks, but over twenty works in this party were almost sold out, we collected and wrote down deal prices, I thought an artist should be confident with own works, trying to persuade visitors feeling sense of that. It could be challengeable for me to do the same thing, but I need to prepare in order to feel with such issues in the future.

[Resume Line]

Gallery Assistant

i       online posters

ii      help with Making of an Archive

ii      transaltion record

iv     doing research on Immigrants’ history

v      Night Party(Artwork sell)

I worked in Richmond Art Gallery for about three months. By doing online poster, purchasing goods and communicating with Vancouver artists, I have gained much unforgettable experience with the partnership. There were so many events I have participants in and prepared together with my colleagues, so I picked up several moments which impressed more than others, and used them to make this project.

As I did lots of online poster to invite audience paying attentions on activities, I made a decision to form a sign/poster for the Richmond Art Gallery, showing what kind of things I have done by myself through three months. Firstly, I used my favorite pattern which was usually seen on the Chinese blue and white porcelain, to design a perfectly round ring. It was surrounded by blooming indigo and dark blue flowers, the color of a ring was slightly different: one was painted with pure blue, another has additional blue and white patterns on its surface. They were represented as a form of perfectly round, because this shape reflected a feeling of happiness, appreciation and harmoniousness in traditional Chinese custom. I believe it will help me to give him best wishes

When I started adding words at the centre of my poster, I came up with a new idea to design a logo for RAG, it was more easily for me to upload photos inside the poster. Thus, I typed “RAG” the short name of that gallery. After manipulating the font and color, I selected two photos from my working time: artist’s talk of making of an archive project, and night party event. As I have made a full preparation of those two and worked well with my partners, there two photos recorded a sense of achievement, and also displayed the result to the viewers. I printed it out and load my logo with while photo frame so that my supervisor could kept it as a creative gift.

The combination of photos, shot name and designable rounds implied the experience of working in Richmond Art Gallery,  showing my wonderful time to communicate, work and learn from more professional skills of artists.

(due to the limitation I could not upload the image, sorry)

As I mentioned in my previous blog, on the Nov. 28th, last Saturday night, we held the gala party to invite contemporary artists and others who are interested in art collections, so that the gallery is able to raise these funds to support itself by selling artworks to visitors. In gala night party, there were over twenty artworks to be displayed on an exhibition space, each work would be labelled as log#1 or #2  that helped us collate and record transactions of artworks at the end of this activity. The opening hours was from 7.00pm to 11.00pm, all staff working in the Richmond Library Centre would go to this party. First of all, there were many things we need to prepare before Saturday, so I went to the liquid store and PriceSmart with my partner Fiona, going shopping with a list that Shaun gave to us and finding other staff we might use on Saturday.

I followed Fiona to look for some drinks in liquid store, unfortunately, that day was raining, so we have lots of trouble carrying these heavy bottles. Fiona are good at identifying the types of wine on the list, in order to save our time and go back for another works, we divided the list and I were responsible for buying oranges and lemons in PriceSmart. I was happy to get this simple task, however, the reality was not as simple as what I have thought before.

It is my first time to purchase for the whole gallery, obviously I did not want to make any mistake. But I thought about the words: oranges and lemons would be the name of soft drink, it was reasonable to buy some soft drinks for the night party. It is too late when I realized that a mistake has been made. Fortunately, thanks for my partner, Fiona called for a taxi and returned those wrong things to the PriceSmart, she helped me buy several real(fruit) oranges and lemons and successfully carried them back to the office where we worked in.

After experiencing the awkward moment, I learned a lesson from my mistake. It is not simple for you to finish any task that people give. Something may be more difficult than your imagination, as a worker, I should be confident with my ability to deal with troubles. Beside, things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme. Thus, we need to find a accessible way to carry on our business with less anxiety and worry. The psychological supports play an significant role in our physical behaviors to some extent, which also influenced our contribution to the future artworks. Since I was worried about my idea of each project, it is hard to produce artworks fulfilling with happiness and achievements. The reception of many suggestive commons from the viewers are supposed to promote works instead of giving pressures on them. As long as I see suggestions and commons in a comfortable way, more better ideas will cover with my mind  and inspire me in the process of making future projects.

Overall, I am appreciated to this unusual experiment, and also thanks to the help of my partner, who teaches me a lot through the working time.

(due to the Upload Limit Exceeded on blog I could not share my photos)

<Making of an Archive> 

Glance & Gain

Few weeks ago, I was working with my team to edit, collect and categorize information of one project, Making of an Archive, hosted by the artist Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn. So far I have made and posted multiple posters both on the Internet and other public sphere, the preparation of the artists’ talk and the process of calling for free donations of fascinating artworks are not simple tasks to be conducted and completed, but it gives me an opportunity to improve the ability of communicating, translating and cooperating with audiences as well as teammates. It is inevitable for a newcomer to make several mistakes through her working time, fortunately, my curator and partner help me to figure out problems and troubles taking place anytime, thus I learn to be unflappable amid changes other than the skills mentioned above. More importantly, there are lots of concepts and purposes attached to the Nguyen’s artistic enterprise guiding a way to specify features and foundations of my own practices of art within an impact of the space and time.

Process

The artist’s talk for Making of an Archive was hold on the weekend, Oct 21st and 22nd. I was responsible for the work of translation and introduction on Saturday. My job started at 2pm, but I arrived there early for categorizing archives that we have already received since our announcement posting online, then it is necessary to design and edit a paper poster both in English and Mandarin as the main Chinese population living on the Richmond area.

I put the title of artist’s talk at the center of our poster in order to attract more visitors easily. With the help of a curator from the grunt gallery, we were giving out leaflets together at the entrance of the library. During this time, I was trying to introduce the talk holding in the afternoon with people that I met, however, it filled with fully frustrations on me at first because of my inability to interest visitors in this event, people are busier and indifferent beyond my imagination and most of them have no idea about the artist.

After several failures, I changed the way to talk with others which may begin at laconic introduction. There are many parents sitting on the coat leisurely who were waiting for their children reading in the library, so I devoted myself to them with logical introductions of artist’s talk, by judging attitudes and responses showing on their face and words, I would decide whether they want to participant in the event or not.

Besides, the invitation was supposed to company with much  enthusiasm that possibly gave audiences first deep impressions. Following these two strategies that I found after experiencing many failures, finally three people who were visiting Vancouver only for few days have strong interests of artist’s talk, and also my curator successfully introduced more passengers to join into our event. I was excited to hand out brochures and samples of photos picking up from archives of the project, some invited audiences needed mandarin translation and others lacked relevant knowledge of artist herself and established artworks, I translated the main information as well as the theme of her project to mandarin speakers, at the same time, through our communication most audiences dissected her project and questioned about her motives. Based on the truth, I share my personal ideas with them, which let me consider and learn more details about conventional vision and constant missions of  the Making of an Archive.

Artist Talk

First of all, Nguyen presented a short vision of collective photos of  Canadian immigrants recording their everyday life. In my opinion, the idea of multiculturalism highlights the whole part of her works,     emphasizing the expansion of sharing  space of cultural practices among communities and institutions in the western society, since she is working on making archives, the platform of speaking and talking will be created as a new form through direct representation of immigrants’ everyday life. Those communities will focus more on the status of Canadian immigrants, which may help them integrate into western culture as well as society.

By viewing the changes from the last ten years to now, it is obvious to have consideration to the impact of multiple cultures, we have not only to get along with citizens from distinctive backgrounds, but also learn how to deal with the term”cultural shock”, in order to develop more comfortable life. Moreover, she invited us to  scan and submit photos into the album that she made for this projects, I introduced audience who are from China to use that album, recording their life moment. it would be an important document to discover the real life of immigrants, also revealing the historical differences and development between native speakers and immigrants. I discussed with many audiences and Nguyen, the purpose of her talk gave a way for us to conduct arts of the life, she hopes this project will inspire citizens to pay more attention on each other especially for those immigrants, then potentially influenced the Canadian government to highly recognize status of them so that the government could fix and built up the protection of multiple cultures in Canada.

I was given an impression of this talk, and I learns many people having lots of interests in the process of making archives of photos, but the lack of artistic knowledge and English speaking skills   possibly keep them away from the theme. As an linguistic learners, there is no doubt that I should understand and study histories better, but absolutely it is crucial to convey true meanings to other who haven’t  known about, calling for more population to join in such activities is a long-term project that is supposed to be worked on.

Info

If you are interested in her projects, please visit – http://www.jacquelinehoangnguyen.com/The-Making-of-an-Archive.

Project Outline-Richmond Art Gallery

I am working in Richmond Art gallery with a team, The Making of an Archive is a name of the project that we need to work on through months. At the beginning, I got an expectation of my technical improvement, for example, I would record submissions of people’s photographs in digital archive, or I need to learn how to use  professional softwares such as Photography and video editors, then make a use to organize websites and documents that are whatever relevant to this project. After first meeting with my supervisor Shaun Dacey, and his curatorial assistant, Paula Booker, above assumptions have been changed exactly. They gave me full information of this ongoing project and tried to inform more details with their personal expectation on that, which  was an necessary step to understand the project I would work and others I need to cooperate with.

The Making of an Archive is not only a way to collect images of everyday life photographed by Canadian immigrants and their family, but also an opportunity providing for social artists who can show up their artworks as any forms in the public exhibition on October 21st and 22nd. For my own perspective,  it means more requirements of my cultural knowledge and social skills, even I have to share my ideas with each one working in this team while doing photographs recording. In addition, Paula expects me to translate English into Mandarin, and make posters with other student Fiona Zhang, who is working for her SFU co-op program. Such task may be given usually during my weekly work time, I am planning to improve my skills on translating, based on precise  translation of whole meanings, the increasing ability of organizing graceful sentences has been one of my goals. Besides, there are social and cultural informations I am to respond for, it is crucial to understand original introduction of this project in details, so that I could deal with them and access to another language, which suppose to do more researches both on relative artists and projects holder, the grunt gallery and Richmond gallery where I am working. So far,  the difficulties in the project has exceeded far than my imagination, my primary partners Fiona and Paula, they get expectation of my translation and common sense within this project, through the making process, I also plan to combine my academic knowledge with its social aspects, the problem of Canadian immigrants’ everyday life would be seen as one of my essay topic in other discourse, as an international student, learning about cultural differences between Western countries and China is still significant way to reduce potential conflicts.

We do have directly conversation for each week, in fact, most time Paula assigns weekly task to me and Fiona, and give us some advice. The feedback of my work will be informed through my working process, usually we contact each other via e-mail after work if some questions are existing. Below I listed several events and preparations for The Making of an Archive:

• Sep.19th: First work and translate poster with a partner
• Sep.26th: Classify three files of the project and sent them to galleries in Vancouver
• Oct.3rd: continue classifying files and make a graphic design with Fiona
• Oct.21st & 22nd: set exhibition and help with the show of photography.
• Following task: recording digital archive, may introduce goals of this project in mandarin to Chinese visitors.

Usually I work for three or four hours each week, but my work time is flexible depending on what task I will be given. The total work time will be fifty hours for sure, and parts of project will be ended before December.