A staple of the art school and art world is the ‘exhibition’; we normally assume this means putting up your creative work (be it painting, drawing, sculpture or film) on to a wall and walking away. But as you will see from the below, there are other ways that you can share and present your work, beyond a white cube space.
Experiment with gaming platforms
Sims performance. I’ve used The Sims to sketch out a performance and then recorded it, which makes these experiments into an artwork itself. On some platforms, like Animal Crossing you can even create your own private view. Sharing your creativity with your family and friends in this way means that there is a supportive audience, no matter who else attends.
The gaming industry has been slow to recognise diversity and representation in its mainstream characters and simulation games but things are starting to change.
Read Funke Joseph’s article on Gamespot for her take.
Follow @ebonixsims for some standout Sims inspiration.
Illustrator Stephanie Unger recently made her own exhibition including a private view on Animal Crossing.
Read her interview with Creative Lives in Progress.
Exhibit at home
On most Fine Art courses students are encouraged to exhibit offsite, outside of their college – for example showing in bandstands in parks, in the backrooms of pubs or performing in department stores. Artists have a rich history of exhibiting in wherever they are living too, so consider exhibiting your artwork in your home.
Perhaps you can use lighting and your own objects to create an installation in your bedroom, or perhaps you could write a conceptual artwork to ponder in the bathroom? Jeremy Deller’s own staged intervention at home was all about being playful in his family house, not taking things seriously and using the space as much as you can.
Create a Mini-exhibition
Inside the redesigned San Fran MoMA
Video courtesy of Bloomberg QuickTake originals.
Museums and galleries often use scale models of their gallery spaces, together with miniature versions of the artworks and artefacts they wish to display, as a way of playing with where artworks may be placed within the exhibition design process. If you borrow this idea but make mini versions of your own artworks, you can create your own miniature solo show, and film the result on your smartphone or document with a camera.
Find out more about how MOMA plan their exhibitions with scale models on sfmoma.org
Build your own online portfolio spaces
Love In The Pines (LITP) is the online space that Camberwell Drawing graduate Tom or Judy Moore has been exhibiting their work in for a while now. A huge range of media is produced and presented within the online space including games, gifs, videos, drawing and music.
The current series ‘Everything is somewhat repaired’ is a series collection of comic-book style illustrations that is a candid, honest and heart-wrenchingly raw depiction of their journey as a trans woman.
Explore Love in the Pines on Tumblr
Create your own ‘Screen Walk’
Video courtesy of The Photographer's Gallery.
‘Screen Walks’ is a new online collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery, UK and Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland.
By screen recording on your computer or phone, it’s totally possible to create your own ‘screen walk’. Filming yourself moving through your screen you could bring up your work or anything that’s inspiring you. You can then add your own voiceover, merging the two in iMovie or any movie making software.
If you don’t have a screen recorder built into your smartphone or your computer, browse your app store and experiment with different free screen recorders and video editing software.
If you’ve got a Mac laptop or desktop, search for QuickTime Player
If you’ve got a PC laptop or desktop, search for the Xbox app
Advisory note: some of the platforms introduced in this post contain content that is adult in nature.
