Artist Jasmine Togo-Brisby setting up her latest exhibit at the Hastings Art Gallery.
OPINION
Hastings Art Gallery exhibition designer and installation manager Jonathan Brown takes Hastings Leader readers behind the scenes in the gallery’s latest column.
An exhibition installation always requires meticulous planning and creative collaboration between the artist, curator, and the installation team.
We shape a brief together through initial conversation which I visualise through plans via a design computer program. There is often a lot of back and forth until the artist’s vision is accurately represented.
I plan the installation process on paper and in my head, going through each step and the possible complications.
This normally affects my sleep, as at some point during the early hours, I will wake to realise I will need a new plan or need to rethink some steps or my approach to a particular problem.
I find this step annoying but quite important, likening it to a sixth sense or some sort of planning superpower and, to be honest, it’s a time I seem to do my best work.
Installation is an exciting process that starts months before the exhibition’s opening date. This is a time when I can meet the artists, get to know them, and sense what the process will be like — from the workload to the general logistics of the project.
Most installations take place over two to four weeks, which is generally enough time if everything goes as planned. Packing up the previous exhibition and preparing the space for the work can take one to two weeks.
Sometimes, this involves de-installing and recycling most of the materials because this is a part of the gallery ethos. The materials are then used to build new walls, plaster, and paint or repaint if the colour scheme changes.
Can you see us now? is one of the exhibitions now at the gallery. It is a sculptural installation by Jasmine Togo-Brisby, and is an example of what the process can look like behind the scenes.
Jasmine is a fourth-generation Australian South Sea Islander of Ni-Vanuatu ancestry who engages with global legacies of the South Pacific slave trade. Her artwork is installed in Hastings Art Gallery’s main gallery, which has an overall area of 1130sq m with an internal roof height of 6m.
When entering, gallery visitors step into a darkened space where they are greeted by an installation that comprises 353 individual plaster cast Vanuatu tam-tam drum replicas. Three chandeliers, carefully assembled by hand and hung from the ceiling to a height just above the floor, accompany the installation.
We emptied out the space for this installation and removed all the internal walls. Then, the whole space was painted from white to charcoal grey.
We used Double Foundry–zylon sheen, a dark hue with great coverage that required only one coat. With a darkened exhibition space, the artwork becomes the central focus and enhances the immersive nature of the experience.
The final steps required directional lighting, and we used 27 specialist beam shapers, which I borrowed from MTG; this is when connections are a great asset.
The artist and I then painstakingly arranged these to enhance the artwork shape, in this case, to form a skeletal ship resembling an excavation of sorts and to accentuate the intricate details of the forms.
The lighting alone took two to three days. With the gallery’s 1970s building and the original set-up of the lighting tracks, this was always going to be an extremely hard objective, but as always, we managed to work through it and it was a massive relief for me.
Overall, the installation process was a feat of precision and co-ordination, and the artist and I are now friends, which is always a good sign. Can you see us now? This engaging exhibition required a huge effort from a team of people and it’s free, so don’t miss it.