Project Me

Juxtapose 0, set-up 1

Hopefully our thorough if slow set-up yesterday means that we can really crack on today. It was a nice easing into the space and to our presentation. It was of course lovely to see some familiar faces and so meet some new folk too.

A gentle pace throughout the exhibition hall – no doubt in large part to Pam’s and Cecilie’s calm friendly professionalism – made it such a welcoming and easy space to be in. Lydia and I painted boards, played with the ’modules’ spoke with our ’neighbours’, remembered our time studying together at Dartington. Roberto arrived and soon after we joined Cecilie and several other exhibitors to head out to the suburbs were Kubus Alba artist-run studio and gallery had invited us for a Danish mid-summer celebration.

I am aware that I have a lot to do. I think that it is achievable if I stay focussed and am good at delegating – not always one of my strong points, so a good learning opportunity. Lydia and Roberto have the finishing touches to put to their pieces … and so do I! … then we can work together to install the work of our colleagues who aren’t able to be with us.

Of course I want to presentation to look good, but it’s most important that it works – that is that it awakens curiosity and facilitates discussion. I don’t think that I am saying anything unusual when I say that all of ’team Glitter Ball’ are interested in making new connections and investigating new opportunities. I am certainly interested in that both as an mutli-artist ’artist-run’ project and as an individual artist.

And the weather is beautiful … things feel good

Juxtapose -1, arriving in Aarhus

The trip to Aarhus and participating in Juxtapose has new significance. Some … many … people are denied opportunity. Taking part in Juxtapose is an amazing opportunity and I am fortunate that I am able to do it. And now I do it knowing that someone who was, due to no fault of their own, unable to be who they could have been very much wanted me to be here doing this.

Things are simultaneously familiar and new – my first time working with so many artists at the same time, my first time presenting Glitter Ball at an event. It is, especially under the circumstances, so very comforting to be among people who know, love, and care for me – not just the artists that I have invited, but also Pam and Cecilie who I have gotten to know over the past four or five years through the relationship between Supermarket and Juxtapose. I know that over the coming week I am going to meet more wonderfully caring, passionate, creative, complex soles – people with whom I felt an immediate and genuine connection when our paths crossed at other fairs.

I really could not be in a better place right now. How I could not have imagined that those words would come forth. Strange as it seems to me there is lightness and there is brilliance. And I know who I have to thank for that, and with all my heart I thank them.