During each exhibition Fabrica explores ways of interacting, considering and contextualising the work through associated events, like most galleries.
Obviously there is huge scope for creativity in this process, being artist led, Fabrica always programs a surprisingly diverse range of stuff that actually brings something else to the work for almost everyone.
Enter Jonathan, as a project manager he takes the possibilities, and runs with them, turning an exhibition into a hub for spin off (or stuck on) activities so unlikely, that the idea alone is inspirational. His scope for opportunity and attention to detail is a form all its own.
This exhibition is no exception, the red cushions are ready, the musical ceramics being fired, but tonight everyone is still exhausted, so it has fallen to the unfortunate artist, Vincent, to give a talk about his work to a public than he doesn’t share a spoken language with.
Luckily Fabrica is millimetres away from becoming a multilingual port, so Cecile stepped up to help the equally exhausted Manon, by forming something akin to a translation committee.
A strange form of theatre then began, Vincent speaking quietly, each word precisely considered, seemingly formulating and revising as he spoke. Manon who works so closely with him, would then supply us with a feint gist of what Vincent said, in between short debates in French about the issues he raised or the perspective he had adopted. Once a consensus was reached either Manon or Cecile or both, would finalise the statement with a definitive translation.
The result was fairly hard won information, intriguingly nuanced by the discarded and supplementary versions; a bit like reading a book with the author’s notes scribbled in the margins.
Throughout these exchanges, Vincent would flick through 2 hard drives of images and videos to illustrate this or that point (no powerpoint gloss here, just the working contents of his computer), giving tantalising glimpses of whole folders of work.
As a polished example of corporate presentation it was what every college would fail you for, but as a way of understanding what this man’s working process was, and how his ideas interrelate it would be worth formulating a training course and charging ‘professional development’ fees.
Needless to say I found it a bit of a revelation. Up until this point I hadn’t seen much of his previous stuff, now the artist that I had come to know during the build suddenly became startlingly 3 dimensional.
It had been dawning on me for a while that we had a lot in common, but during his presentation I realised that much of what I have been fumbling around with during my career, he had been engaged with too, in shockingly similar ways.
Anyone who has seen someone else exploring the same ideas knows how unsettling it can be.
I asked myself if I felt jealous but found that I was really impressed, he had done it so much better than I ever could have.
