hello

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the low quality photo of a giant pleather foot that you always wanted (ADAM Design Museum, Brussels)

As a big fan of the sound of my own voice I thought I'd treat the internet to it as well (in typed form). I keep going to exhibitions (temporary, permanent, immersive, stiflingly quiet, paid, free, pretentious, low-key...) in museums and galleries of every kind, and having many thoughts. I am obviously very interested in the content of these exhibitions - personally, a bit of twentieth century British photography or some colonialism in visual form will always brighten up a rainy afternoon - but I also do love looking at how it's all put together. There is something delicious about the slickness of the Tate Modern, but on some days its matte white walls and lack of daylight are unbearably claustrophobic. Sometimes I love the picture gallery at Weston Park Museum in Sheffield with its idiosyncratic Victorian hang, but other days it gives me the urge to Marie Kondo the whole building. Why? Why does it matter? And how does the messaging, subliminal and explicit, in the words on those walls fit with the way the space makes me feel? 

What am I, the ~victim~, the recipient, the critical examiner of these spaces, meant to get from them? What will stay with me and what is wasted air? And how do these supposedly rarefied places reflect and refract what happens outside, in the 'real world'? 

Of COURSE, I know that these are big questions but also popular ones right now. The whole blog thing has absolutely been done - the White Pube is a massive influence for me and an excellent read anyway; ideas of decolonising, of centring minority voices for the first time in art and cultural spaces are on the up. That's all to the good, but that doesn't mean the process won't be painful (and therefore fun to dissect). 

I look forward to disagreeing with (all 2 of) you x

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