How do you you promote a small independent artist run space that has no ties to any official organisation, is unfunded and whose members are preternaturally busy with a) making art; and b) earning a living (sometimes by making art and sometimes by making stuff that is not art)??? Big ??? Question.
Of course to some extent the answer is in the Internet: website, blog, this blog, email, listings. But with all the myriad of stuff on the web vying for your attention, how can we be sure anyone ever sees any of it?
The second level of promotion is getting out there with cards, posters, flyers and so on. This is good as it’s really more personal, but it’s extremely time consuming. How to find the time for that? Looking at my schedule, which includes filming and editing a new work with a 29 June deadline, AND having a job, I’m really not sure. My studio colleagues are not much better provided with time.
A few friends have advised advertising for an intern. It’s not a bad idea should anyone actually want to learn promotional skills. But we can’t just use people, we’d need to provide something too. But what? Isn’t that a lot of responsibility? And one of our cornerstones is, we aren’t an institution. Hmmm…
Once again we’ll rely on Internet, and posters placed near the studio. Any other ideas would be appreciated.
