Having attended a Creative Journal course at Metal@Southend, we were given the opportunity to display our journals and altered books at the Village Green Festival on 11 July 2015 in Chalkwell Park. We jumped at the chance.
Metal had recently renovated an old stable block in Chalkwell Park into an art school. Located in the centre of the park, with views of the gardens and the estuary beyond is where our exhibition was to be held. We visited the venue a few days earlier to drop off our sketchbooks and to check out the space. Each artist was allocated a one or two hour slot in which to invigilate the exhibition and explain the project and work to visitors.
On the morning of the event, we set out the sketchbooks and altered books on tables that would encourage visitors to handle them. The work is very tactile and we wanted this to be a fundamental part of the user experience.
The festival only opened at 11am and the exhibition was quiet to begin with, but as the park began to fill with people we soon had a regular flow of visitors wandering in to have a look. The festival is a family event and we had visitors of all ages dropping in…
We all thought the exhibition was a huge success and everyone who took part really enjoyed the experience.
