Cross year exhibition number 4 in the Long Gallery, Newcastle University

The start of this academic year at Newcastle University saw the launch of the cross year exhibition. Every week, one Fine Art student from each year (both Undergraduate and Postgraduate) participate in a group exhibition in the Long Gallery. The group meets on Monday afternoon to discuss the curation of the exhibition. The artists then install their work, and the exhibition opens at 5pm on Monday night. Each Wednesday morning a crit is held in the Long Gallery in which the exhibiting artists, along with anyone else who wishes to join in, discuss the work included in the exhibition. The exhibition is destalled on Wednesday afternoon.

The cross year exhibition is a great way of meeting students from the other years and establishing links with each other. The emphasis is on the artists taking part to organise and curate the exhibition and lead the crits, often without the involvement of staff. The cross year exhibition is a great opportunity to test out work in an gallery setting, without it being too pressurised, and with support.

I presented 2 works, both made from food items such as cereals, marshmallows, liquorice all sorts, crisp breads and the stalks from vine tomato. 

One sculpture was fairly small, and was positioned off-centre on a rather large rectangular white plinth. 

The other taller sculpture was placed on another plinth, the same size, shape and colour as the other plinth used. The larger sculpture was encased in a bell jar, whereas the other sculpture was uncovered. 

I positioned the plinths at opposite ends of the gallery so that each sculpture could be enjoyed in its own right, rather than being in a direct comparison with each other.

I had tried having the smaller sculpture covered by the bell jar (see below), but I felt it was swamped by the jar.

I had also tried positioning the sculpture in the centre of the plinth, but I chose to position it closer to an edge as I thought the sculpture had more character then as it appeared, to me, to be slightly mischievous.

I also tried having the larger sculpture without the bell jar, but I was interested in getting feedback from people about the effect that the bell jar has on their reading of the work.