Week 9 – Getting the green light from the property manager

In our initial meeting this week which took place on Tuesday, Damien introduced the week’s plan. Thursday, today, we originally planned to further review and critique the proposal for opening my own space, “The Association”, contextualising the resources I’ve gathered throughout my time on the internship and also a brief interview with myself about the whole experience.

Though, I arrived bearing brilliant news! The previous day I had been helping with tech work for Johnny T from Harlesden High Street. As I stated in last week’s blog, Johnny manages multiple spaces, so I went into the day of work with an aim. The idea was to introduce him to my model, and strike some sort of deal where I would do his tech work in exchange for a space, and exactly that happened. Johnny loved the idea of it, and assured me that as soon as a space popped up which would work well with my model he’d let me know, Presenting me with the timeline of up to 3 months to receive the space. My focus quickly shifted onto the concept, idea and consistency of what my association would be.

So today me and Damien talked only about the gallery concept. We came up with the name, he pressed the importance of maintaining a consistent outlet of artworks/artists. The ways in which I would eligible for funding, licences I’d need for specific funding streams, a full breakdown of expendables, ect. Having a grace period of up to 3 months, means that I can crystallise on the concept so that as soon as the space opens the programme is ready, artists are there and the ball is rolling. Though I do anticipate that many things will morph into something unexpected/unplanned for as that’s the nature of most endeavours, especially artistic.