Since volunteering at Spike Island I have met lots of friends, and after relocating to Bristol full-time, I have been able to become more involved with the gallery and volunteer at more events which has been fantastically fulfilling.
The volunteers and staff at Spike Island are an awesome team, and Jules; the volunteer co-ordinator is one of the best people I have ever met. Spike Island volunteers started a zine, and I wrote about my volunteer experience so far, for the second issue. I wanted to share this on my blog because it was my first ever piece of published writing. It has been amazing to meet such encouraging, creative, kind people in Bristol and I look forward to what 2017 has in store.
Spike
Zine [Volunteer Experience - Cheri Donohue]
I
first visited Spike Island 2 years ago on an open day, it was cool to see all
of the creative work spaces at Spike. Everyone was happy to talk about their
art, it was my first insight into the lovely, open, friendly, creative
community at Spike Island.
After
recently moving to Bristol, I wondered how to be involved with Spike Island and
became a volunteer. Since volunteering I have invigilated in the gallery for 2
exhibitions, some events, and for the preview evening of the Hedwig Houben, and
Roman Stetina & Mirosla Burianek exhibitions.
It
was great to meet other volunteers at the briefing for Autumn exhibitions,
everyone I have met at Spike has been so welcoming and I think that’s very
representative of the community here. As we were guided around the gallery,
Hedwig described to us our role as volunteers for the exhibition. We are
encouraged to reconstruct shelves, and reposition pieces from the exhibition in
different layouts to our desire, each day. It’s a very exciting role to be curating
the gallery space while visitors come into the gallery, the unusual moving
around of equipment or repairing any damage to the plastesine car, encourages them
to ask us questions, and immediately opens up a conversation about the art.
It
was insightful to see Hedwigs performance at the preview evening, seeing her
interacting with her art while she read a script associated with the plastesine
car was very humanising. Speaking with Hedwig afterwards, it was interesting to
hear how she lost herself in her performance and finds it really amazing to see
the different emotions people have towards her work. As volunteers, we were
shown how to repair the plastesine surface after the performance, and to
continue making repairs if needed throughout the duration of the exhibition.
It’s cool to be looking after the exhibition in this way, and feels strange to
be allowed to touch art.
Volunteering
at Spike Island events such as Night of the Fellows, is fun and always
surprising. I love hearing artists talk about the ideas behind their work, and
at Night of the Fellows it’s especially inspiring to hear graduates introduce
themselves, their art and discuss their plans for the future. Amy Gough, one of
this years’ Graduate Fellows, showed us her short film and it was particularly
amazing to hear about her process and how she got obsessed with the elements
she was researching.
Volunteering
at Spike, already I have had the wonderful opportunity of meeting artists and
creative folk from all around the world. I always feel inspired after being at
Spike for the day, I feel very lucky and I can’t believe I was originally
nervous to get in touch about volunteering.
No comments:
Post a Comment