The Exhibition Diary - Introduction

The Family Event Exhibition Feb 2010 from Naomi Kendrick on Vimeo.
Filmed by Michael Maydon and Lisa Finch This may take a few minutes to load

For all photographs from the exhibition go to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/multisensory/collections/72157623091718993/

The Exhibition of The Family Event Installation and documentation from The Family Event July 2009 is over. The Middle Room, in which the installation was shown, has now returned to being just the dining room, and The Lounge, where the documentation was shown, has resumed it's role as the lounge (though a lot better decorated than pre exhibition). It is hard to believe that it really happened, that all of those stories were revealed in the lounge and that the contents of our dining room could transport people to unpredictable places.... I kept a diary throughout the exhibition and this, the comments book and other documentation gives an insight into what happens which I'll be talking about over the next few blog entries. 


Firstly I'd like to thank the seventy-one of you who came, saw, heard, smelt, felt and responded to the exhibition. You stayed for between one and a half and three hours, spending between fifteen and forty-five minutes of that alone with the installation and the rest absorbing and responding in The Lounge. You wrote twenty-one pages of comments, made a basket full of drawings and sculptures, ate two and a half tins of biscuits and drank countless cups of tea - and I enjoyed every second of it!


It isn't easy putting on an exhibition for the first time in your own home, the advantages were that I could show the work when and how I wanted without relying on a third-party or having to secure funding. Also the Domestic setting felt right for the exhibitions content, and in fact later proved to be integral to may visitors experience. The challenge lay in the house not being a 'known' arts venue, it lacks a marketing team or a city centre location, therefore I am especially grateful for everyone's support.


The purpose of doing this was to show my installation and the documentation of the The Family Event 4th of July Event, in which my family encountered and responded to this work. Here, I wanted to go a step further with how the installation would be experienced, giving a whole new set of people the opportunity to do this, and respond to it if they wished. 


The physical artwork and the 'way' it is encountered are one and the same for me. Previously, this installation has been shown in a large space, with small groups of people experiencing it simultaneously and within a limited time frame. The work provoked a response (as evident in the July event ), but for me I had offered an unsatisfactory experience, as people had limitations on how they could interact with the work. I somehow felt I owed the installation more - it's meaning and the way in which it has to be handled to be 'known' deserved intimacy with the audience. Therefore the next step was always going to be a setting in which the individual visitor is 'given' the installation along with the time, trust and openness due - to both artwork and audience.


I wanted to know if this would change anything, would it work? Would stripping away all else, so there is just the work and the visitor, allow them to connect to it (or not) in an uncompromised and more personal way? 

From The Family Event sketch book - Feedback

I have been looking through the feedback from my family from 'The Family Event' in the form of questionnaires I gave out on the day and some post event e-mails and cards I received. I think it is interesting and important to know what the participants thought, so I have put some of their comments here. To see my own reflection on the day see my earlier blog entry 'Dear Family...'

What were you expecting from the day?
A wedding!!
Did my best not to think about or expect anything
To Learn more about Naomi's work
Mayhem with two children ruining everything...
A complete surprise, but something to do with the senses
Lots of food and to not know exactly what was going on

What was your favourite part of the day?
Being together and Naomi's artwork
Discussing ideas and inspiration from Naomi's work
The making of an art piece
Wrap up (looking at each others work)
All of it was fantastic really enjoyed it as you must have noticed, but if I had to state one bit it was creating our art!
Playing boggle (I had not played it before)
Making clay rabbit

What was your least favourite part of the day?
Going home
Leaving
packing up
Travelling and traffic jams
Thinking of what to create - but once we worked it out it was fun
Not being able to eat all the food as I'm on weight watchers

Is there anything you think could be done differently?
A wedding...
Bit of music during lunch?? (smiley face drawing)
Bigger pies!
Sharing thoughts on the food
I would like to have been more thoughtful/creative on the task i.e acted or sang
No

How did today compare to your previous experience of art and of spending time with family?
excellent brilliantly done
Art was fun and carefree - much like school rather than adult experience of art. Very interesting to be around family in completely new capacity.
Nice seeing how others think - More creatively than people normally demonstrate
A unique event being a participant with art
Uncovers new insights
Different with all adults being included as it is mostly myself and the children and usually a child like result but this was nice to have an adult result
I have learnt from experience, and also from experiencing some of Naomi's art in different places to keep an open mind and be surprised! Last time the family got together was for a wedding so this was completely different.
A whole new experience I'd like to have again
More family here than normal so different and better atmosphere
To be honest I haven't been so involved in art before. It was a great experience.

If there were a 'Family Event Part Two', what do you think should happen and why?
A wedding!!!
Best part is not knowing and turning up with an open mind and no preconceptions.
A wedding!!!
Flip the event - ask participants for 'entry' to exhibition
For something to be created that can be taken home and to be proud of or to do pieces that we give to each other or that we make specifically for someone to learn more about that person etc.
I think people should be given tasks prior to the event and bring things. Also for task to be created by the guests.
Same again maybe with some booze

Any other comments about your experience of The Family Event.
Many thanks for a wonderful day
Great day, felt productive, creative, fun and unlike any other event.
Loved it all despite being a little nervous before hand - No reason at all!!!
What a great day when is the next and what can I help you with. Well done and thank you!
Very well organised and thoroughly enjoyable

‘I can see why this is very special, because it felt it!

It was a fantastic idea and day and really enjoyable and very therapeutic probably for all involved. Instead of sitting around talking about oneself or discussing and putting the world to right, we were all enjoying mutually, a special moment and seeing each and everyone’s creative side and artist within. Loved it as you could see……’

‘just a quick message to thank you for a very enjoyable day. I have enjoyed telling everyone what we did, also for me it was great fun creating something (not sure what to call it) with a group and I find it quite relaxing. Something that a friend asked me is what did Naomi get out of the day, and I was not sure how to answer that. One very big treat was to have the whole family together, it was lovely seeing people I had only heard about or I had not seen for a long time. Well done Naomi for getting everyone together it was great.’

From The Family Event sketch book

Drawings ready to be divided up and sold at The Family Event

(as an attempt to cover some of my costs)

Ideas for The Family Event Installation

Grandma and Cynth check out the cake
(a surprise from my mum, who had it made from my drawing of a cake,
and presented it to me at The Family Event)

To see documentation of The Family Event in the form of; bits from my sketch book, pictures from the day of the event, and what my family made in response to my art work have a look at 'The Family Event 2009' on my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/multisensory/

Dear Family...

Auntie Marilyn and her work at The Family Event.

After the Family Event had taken place in July I received an e-mail from my Auntie Marilyn, saying how much she had enjoyed the day and that she had been telling her friends about it. Marilyn's friends had asked her what did I get out of it? Without much time for a feedback session at the end of the event, she couldn't tell them. The letter below was my response to this, and was sent to Auntie Marilyn and the rest of the family.

Dear Family,

Thank you for your e-mails, letters and comments, I thought I would let you know my own thoughts on The Family Event.
My sense of what actually happened on the day is a bit of a blur, and this is why Amanda’s two and a half hours of film, Andrews photographs and your feedback have been so important to me. I have been working in this way, with people responding to my artwork through making their own having established the method on my M.A, which I finished in March. Despite this previous work I did not know what to expect - particularly because my own family were participating as opposed to the strangers and colleagues I had been used to. Some people I spoke to about the idea thought it was brave working with my own family, as you might all fall out or just hate it!

I remember feeling very nervous just before you arrived, and felt strange slipping into ‘work mode’ given how familiar you are to me. I noticed that you seemed, understandably, nervous too.
The reason for having the board games you played at the start of the day, aside from filling the time when people were being shown the work, was to try and re-create the comfortable and playful atmosphere from when we have played those games in the past. These games and the request for you to make food that came from a family memory, were also intended to get you thinking about the senses, your own family history and the different relationships within that.

I enjoyed presenting the installation to you, my policy for this (when I have shown this and other installations elsewhere) is that I should only be there at the start to say you can touch it, and you need to look in the boxes etc. Beyond this I should not hang around in case I influence your explorations. Within this event I was asking you to experience my work and respond to it, but what is important, and differentiates it from gallery workshops and other forms of education, is that I should not influence how you do this, I just have to trust that you will. Though in a way this is risky for me, as I never know what the outcome will be, I feel this is the right way to engage with art - no two people will feel the same about one artwork, and this is what I find interesting. In a sense once it has left the artists studio it’s meaning is taken over, shifted by each person who may encounter it.

In this case I was also relieved to leave you in the work, as your opinions are very important to me - part of me wanted to know what you thought, and another part didn’t!
I was used to seeing you in different contexts, Christmas, weddings, family holidays, not like this. When I did over hear you exploring the work on the day, or on Amanda’s film it was fascinating to see everyone’s familiar personalities responding to this unfamiliar situation. I noticed uncertainty, humour, curiosity, people trying to work it all out or just playing with it. This was interesting as much for your interactions with each other whilst exploring, as your direct interaction with the artwork.

How we know people within our families is limited, it is really dependent on certain situations in which we normally gather talk, play (and usually eat!). I feel this gave me more of an insight and I started to wonder what you would be like as work colleagues and friends. There were also moments during the day when people slipped into the roles they would normally assume at a family occasion, like taking control of the kitchen or making everyone laugh.

After I had asked you to start making work yourselves I looked through the kitchen hatch out at everybody, busy grabbing materials and making. This was such a familiar scene to me, I recognised all of the materials from previous workshops and the acts of breaking of lumps of clay off the block, finding scissors and pouring out glue…but here the faces didn’t match the scene and that was odd and exciting in equal measure, a bit like a strange dream.

I felt pleased to have given everyone the chance to spend time together in this way; it was particularly nice seeing all of the different generations working together on the same thing, on anything, in this way. I feel that the documentation of The Family Event serves the dual purpose of documenting a piece of work I have done, but also as an important family record for years to come.

Part of my reason for doing this is because it is difficult to explain what I do, and to show you my work when it isn’t the first hand experience. I think that many artists feel the path they have chosen leaves them feeling separated from their family in some way. I know from my usual workshops that ‘art’ is guilty of projecting itself as aloof, closed to those who ‘do not know’ which is a massive fault on the part of the art world, and one which I have to battle with in much of the gallery workshops I do. Only you can know if involving you in this one aspect of my work, means you now understand my job any better, but for me it felt like a bridging the gap between my ‘roots’ and the world I inhabit day to day.

When it came to packing the work into the van at the end of the day, I was conscious of how indifferent I was to how my own work was wrapped up and moved, in comparison to your work. I felt a huge sense of urgency to protect yours and get it safely into my studio for repairs and perseveration. What you made was brilliant, and an insight into members of my family that I would never have had without doing this. Within each group there was something that stays with me; the way you worked as a team, the effort and concentration that went into the work, the revelations about you and your own family memories or feelings about my work and me. Your work, sat beside me now in my studio, feels like the most important ever made. The preciousness I am applying to it perhaps shows the significance of the circumstances of how art is made; it’s process, who has done it and why over and above the physical form it may take.

Recently Amanda and I watched the film footage she had taken of the day, I was gripped throughout. At the end she asked me questions about what I had learnt from it but all I could do was sit there with a big grin on my face, and say “it just shows me how wonderful my family are” Carrying out the event and looking through the documentation felt very emotional, I was pleased that it had worked (people explored my work and responded in an interesting and new way), proud of my family and profoundly sad that it was suddenly all over.

One of my favourite artists, Joseph Beuys, is famous for saying ‘art is life and life is art’ this runs through much of my work and in particular beliefs about how the art establishment should function in a more accessible way. I feel The Family Event is the closest my work has got to fully embracing this philosophy, and has given me a renewed faith that this is the right path to follow – Life is interactive, multi sensory, unexpected and those that engage in life do so as a diverse set of people with an infinite set of experiences, expectations and relationships to offer – Art has a responsibility to reflect this. It is amazing how in the seemingly liberal world of the arts, things can be so closed and categorized, there are frustrating traditional notions of what it is, who it is for, who it should be made by.
We proved it is, and should be, for all.


Thank you!
Love Naomi
X

The Family Event 2009

The Family Event, 4th of July 2009, Denmead Hampshire

The Family Event is an artwork with two elements, a multi sensory installation and a participatory event in which participants were asked to respond to the installation, in this case through discussion and making in groups. Creating The Family Event began with my choice of participants, my extended family. The desire to involve my family in my work was in part down to it's sensory nature - when participants have responded to my previous work the sensory aspect of it evokes memories and feelings that often relate to aspects of the family, such as their own childhood. In effect I was bringing this particular response to my work 'full circle' by asking my family to participate. I also knew that only by participating would my family have the opportunity to understand 'what I do'.


The Family Event Installation itself, explores the idea that knowledge of 'a family is intangible. There are layers, pieces brought together in the memories and feelings of each individual within that family, but this information is constantly changing according to complex relationships and the passing of time.
What conclusions can the trails of objects, memories and myths; the remnants of a family's presence bring us to? The work takes the participant on a journey in which at first they encounter the surreal visual flashbacks associated with a childhood memory, followed by a process of searching then unearthing objects, juxtaposed to form the start of narratives where fact and fiction are unclear. To experience the work as a whole the participant must interact with it, moving and opening various containers, seeing, touching, smelling and listening to what they may find.


In the early stages of making the artwork my family would respond to, I had to consider whether or not it should be 'about them' and decided against this. In my work, I use trickery by juxtaposing sensory elements, objects and ideas to divert from the obvious and expand upon the possible narratives I am leaving to be discovered, as well as the ways of responding to them. Creating work that is in some form already 'known' to my family would have closed the experience rather than opened it up to interpretation. Therefore there are aspects within it that are drawn from my own memory, but they lie amongst and outnumbered by invented fragments of other stories, borrowed, found and imagined.


On the 4th of July around 30 members of my family (ranging in age from 1 to 86) gathered in a village hall near to my family home. Here they experienced The Family Event Installation. I then asked them to respond to the work by making their own, in groups. Asking this of participants comes from my own desire to see how far my artwork can be taken beyond my own understanding of it, to know it's 'response' it's continued story. I see this process as a collaboration between my imagination and that of my participants. Within the two hours of making and the resulting artworks my family produced, an insight into my own family was revealed. Their relationship to one another and to me was exposed in a way only possible through this situation. The Family Event Installation was also shown at The Storey Gallery, Lancaster as part of the seminar 'Sensation' in July 2009.