SOPHIE BROWN:
A REFLECTION ON SUPER MARKET
Posted January 2021
As a Painting Graduate of 2020, there is a number of events and opportunities that I sadly missed out on due to the current and ongoing circumstances, so I was thrilled to be given the opportunity as part of my internship with Circus Artspace to be involved in Super Market, an exhibition in collaboration with the Victorian Market, Inverness - at the tail end of December 2020.
Given the current circumstances, the chance to display my work publicly was a huge opportunity – one that was especially significant given my own graduation lacked a physical degree show and my neglected degree show work had been lurking ominously without purpose in my attic for months.
I chose my own space located in Unit 3 - which had previously been a crystal healing and wellbeing centre. With three days to set up shop, it was truly wonderful to be part of a physical exhibition, where the usual heated busy-ness is only added too by the wearing of masks.
Seeing people, and more specifically fellow creatives was both mentally exhilarating and hugely motivating. I definitely took full advantage in asking for advice and guidance in the aesthetics of setting up my unit (within a social distance, of course!). This was also the first time to spend time with most of the team from Circus face-to-face, a rarity and a joy in a modern 2020 internship that has predominantly been over laptop camera.
Set up complete, the exhibition was now open to the public, just a month shy of initial conception. Through the early planning stages, I can definitely say I learnt a lot about what goes on behind the scenes of planning and facilitating events, which was hugely beneficial given this was an area of interest for me and experience I hoped to gain through this whole process. From health and safety, to risk assessments, technology failure and maintaining a COVID safe environment – there was definitely a lot to discuss and experience and learn along the way.
One of my tasks as intern, was to help out with the invigilating of the space while it was open to the public. This was one of my first experiences where I have been given the responsibility of doing this solo, and was undoubtedly the baptism of fire I needed. The job of invigilating required me to turn on each space in the morning and turn off at night – which admittedly was easier said than done but by the second day, I had my system down.
I previously mentioned that being in the company of others was a wonder that I would have never even considered a year prior, but being able to see the public reaction to a creative event such as Super Market was fantastic, the sheer intrigue and need to experience something not so doom and gloom was truly uplifting and made the whole opportunity even more worth while and rewarding.