NEW DIRECTOR– NEW DIRECTION – NEW ACTION

POST 3.

Mid December, about half way through my internship, the Education Manager said that she had no work for me until the new director approved the next season of programs. It was suggested that I call mid January to see if there was any ongoing projects for me to work on. I was not feeling very confident about the change of direction of the centre and that the new director may not want me back. Concerned as I was, I started looking at other options for an internship. Pre Christmas was not the best time to be calling centres about internship placements so I waited.

“Yes, come back, its all go!” I arrived back on 21^st January to find that most of the projects I had been researching had be cancelled, even the Easter Festival I had created. That really disappointed the education manager, she loved it, but she was told that the word ‘Easter’ was not to be used as it was exclusive.

The main reason for cuts to programs was due to the centre running over budget for the past 6 months without a director. We did move forward with some of the workshops that had been discussed, but without the coordinating exhibition.

Second day back into my internship in January, my memories of mail out deadlines working in commercial galleries when everyone instantly drops whatever they are doing and folds and stuffs and labels and counts, icame flooding back. Its exactly the same in a large government organization… another day passes!

THE TUMBLE DRYER EFFECT

Post 2.

For a few more days I was tossed about between the assistant registrar and education and totally lost my ‘raison d’être’. I wanted to work towards my goal of leaving my internship with a new skill set in education and public programs, being able to walk away and step into paid employment. As it is in most arts organisations, they are underfunded and short staffed and having worked with installation and registration previously, the assistant registrar valued my assistance. She was fun to work with and in her very humorous way, her parting words were “you have been very useful!”

I spoke to the education and public program manager about this tumble dryer situation and she completely understood and informed the registrar that I was there to work in Education.

There were many days of research, from commercial kids characters to local historical concepts, have I mentioned the football collaboration proposal? Farming, migration, settlement…

Some days there were 4-installation crew bussing around, they were fun and interesting, most of them were there part time, some being artists and others worked for other galleries. Occasionally I would have lunch with them on the platform overlooking the river and listening to the blue bells tinkering. Was I really still in Sydney?

What a great work environment… until the summer heat kicked in. The arts centre is NOT air-conditioned. That’s not completely true, the collection room and one of the smaller galleries are air conditioned. I was told the office is air conditioned, but is not effective due to the design of the build – we had serious melt down for a few days in December and Jan/Feb. Fortunately I didn’t get the worst of it, as my brain shuts down in that heat.

LET THE INTERNSHIP BEGIN!

POST 1

With many hours, kilometres, and tolls ahead of me I began my internship in education and public programs with a dynamic council funded arts centre in the deep west of Sydney - or is it still Sydney? This was not my first choice for internships, but after the interview I could see the valuable contribution these programs can have on the local communities and how they support the delivery of curitorial content. The education manager did say where possible she would lend me to the curators.

Day one just happened to be in school holidays and a piñata workshop was underway in the art studio for under 10’s. The facilitator was desperate for some help, so after being given coffee I ‘got down and dirty’ with the kids and glue! This was all fine and normal for me, being a material hands on ‘kind-a-gal’.

At lunch I ran into a fellow Arts Administration student who was part of the installation team at this arts centre. After lunch I was given a desk with computer in the open office area, and asked to do some research on a short list of artists that may be invited to exhibit in possible up coming collaborative exhibition with the local football clubs. This was my first taste of how diverse the local communities are, I was looking at artists names that were Sudanese, Lebanese, Vietnamese as well as local indigenous. Alas this project never went ahead, which I found out later often happens. The research doesn’t all get trashed, it was often adapted or transformed primarily to fit the budget!

Day 2 I spent helping with registration, that is delivery of artworks for the centre’s annual Art Prize, and collection of art works from the previous exhibition.

Day 3 got hot with handling art works, and helping the curator with placement of the very diverse works in style, skill level and size.

Day 4 was back to research, this time for their bi-centenary exhibitions and celebration.