Our Curator visits Exeter and attends REMIX

Our Curator visits Exeter and attends REMIX

This is the first time I am posting on our blog, having after few months returned from my yearlong Clore Fellowship. I am now back in the full swing of things here at Compton Verney, mainly in the curation of my future exhibitions ‘The Non-Conformists: Photographs by Martin Parr’ and ‘Periodic Tales: The Art of the Elements’ (working title). However, I am not going to blog about these exhibitions today (I will do at some point, I promise!), but instead I am reporting on my trips last week to Exeter and London.

My colleague, Chris Rice and I went to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter (RAMM) for a meeting with Julien Parsons, Senior Collections Officer. Having previously worked there from 2004-2011 as Curator of Exhibitions, I had delight in seeing my old galleries again and the artworks I had commissioned at the museum.

RAMM front entrance

RAMM front entrance hall

Julien was kind enough to show us around the galleries and talk about RAMM’s impressive HLF redevelopment project. The museum looks as good as it did the day it reopened in December 2012. I would recommend you take the opportunity to visit their current exhibition ‘Art & Soul: Victorians and the Gothic’, a treat to see and ties in to our summer 2015 exhibition ‘The Arts and Crafts House’.

Arts and Crafts

My second visit last week was to attend the ‘REMIX summit’ conference based at Google Offices, London http://www.remixsummits.com/ldn/

Looking at Culture, Technology and Entrepreneurialism the conference featured the great and the good of the cultural industry. It looked at how to include gaming in the museum/gallery world, about risk taking, about how to look at unused local assets and collections, such as a great project called ‘The Line’ a sculpture walk for London: http://the-line.org/

The two highlights of my day were the presentation by the amazing Fabien Riggall from ‘Secret Cinema’; I can’t tell you want he said, as it was all a secret! And the Coffee House experiment run by Matt Green, of the Time Travellers Guide to London. It was an opportunity to network and discuss topical issues and key themes which came up in the conference.

My leaving thoughts relating to REMIX is the need for more awareness of the regions and the lack of money within the sector – there is not enough money for most of us to carry out or participate in some of the amazing projects which were presented, and there was a serious lack of diversitywith the speakers – an area which I believe was tackled on day two of the conference. This image recaps on the themes of the first day.

Simon Cronshaw, Co-Founder, Culture Label's summary of day one of the remix conference

Simon Cronshaw, Co-Founder, Culture Label’s summary of day one of the remix conference

Next week, I will post about my two day trip to many cultural venues in Newcastle/Gateshead, and I promised to ramble less!

Penny Sexton, Curator