Embracing constraints to create foundations.
The first post about Let’s Connect detailed the “whys” of the project — things we felt important in the participatory design. This story will discuss some of the “how.”
In previous participatory projects that I’ve organized— Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition, Split Second: Indian Paintings, and GO: a community-curated open studio project — you may have noticed there was a heavy digital emphasis common to all of them. Both Click and Split Second used website applications as the primary method of engagement with the results of that online engagement ending in onsite exhibitions. GO had heavy digital components including a website where artists created profiles, ways for the public to bookmark studios they wanted to visit, and an app to find the studios, check in, and vote. All three of these projects used technology as a means to an end and the use of tech was carefully tied to the meaning and goals of each initiative.
Let’s Connect is interesting because of how much it departs from the use of digital — the reasoning was both practical and engagement driven. Practically speaking, the Barnes does not have a digital team in the same way I’ve had in the past and our project budget simply didn’t allow for a lot of digital overhead. We started to ask ourselves how we could architect the project without it and this seemed to match the engagement goals of the project, which were much more about connections — those that could be made face to face.
Digital Constraints
We’re using a lot of third party integrations to make things easy. The first step involved our graphic design team creating a mark for the project, which could be used across all channels — print, web, social, email, etc. — including third party services. You’ll notice this mark is carefully designed to be as neutral as possible — participants will create answers in this project, so the mark needed to encourage awareness without being prescriptive.
The project website is hosted on Wix and we kept this simple — the website is all about communicating how the project works. It doesn’t feature artist submissions or profiles — all of this will be done on site when you are standing with the works.
Registration is done electronically through the use of Formstack, and this has proven to be the most flexible workhorse of the entire project. Formstack is handling artist, community, and curator registration. The service has plugins that dynamically move registration data directly to google docs, so our front lines staff can check people in using a restricted google sheet. Formstack is also used to power the artist submission form with a work flow feature that will allow an artist to send us their submission, give staff the ability to add information in the back office, and artists to sign electronically onsite when they drop off and pick up their work. The same data in this form will power a directory in the gallery, so participants can lookup each artist by the number associated with their work. Formstack integrations are also used to move email data submitted on registration forms dynamically to Mailchimp lists, so we can communicate with participants throughout the process.
For more than a couple of reasons, we will be utilizing rubber wristbands for artist entry to the Barnes during the six week open call. Artists register online and when they do they receive unlimited free access to the Barnes during the period. Rather than having artists sign in each time they come in, they will sign in only the first time and be given a wristband. The artist wearing the band can go directly to the collection door helping speed up the repeat entry process. Nicely, too, the wristbands form a common participant language enabling artists see and meet other artists during gallery visits. The bands give our Art Team the ability to spot artists, so they can assist with information on works in the collection and engage accordingly. Overall, the bands — the most low tech of solutions — give us a way to create a social experience among participants and our staff, which is critical given the project goals.
For the voting process, we’re going to rock it old school with Scantron — yes, you read that correctly — ballots. You remember those, don’t you? Those things we used for the standardized tests we took in school? Scantron has custom ballot design and scanning services, which meant we could shop this out easily. Nicely, the use of paper balloting ensures that voting isn’t happening electronically over the internet — something that opens up a whole can of FCC regulations we felt best avoided. These ballots also utilize #2 pencils, which happen to be the only writing implements we allow in the galleries. Scantron helped us simplify a lot of complexity.
All of these choices meant we could limit the technical overhead on the project, enable non-technical staff to do the heavy lifting, and keep the budget in check.
Physical Constraints
The use of space is an incredibly important factor in Let’s Connect — for starters, we needed to basically create it and, at the same time, ensure we had enough of space to run an open call that could accommodate as many artists as wanted to participate. So, we took a page from the playbook of a participatory exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, called Foot in the Door. In that program, artists were asked to submit works that were one foot by one foot; keeping the work at a manageable size helped ensure that there was enough room for all of the submissions. This made sense to us and, for Let’s Connect, we are using 8"x10" as a standard size available in most art supply stores.
Let’s Connect asks artists to create a new work that responds to one in the Barnes collection. In the installation of the submissions, we wanted to think about creating close proximity to the works in the Barnes collection that artists are responding to as part of the open call. Nicely, the Barnes has two collection classrooms that are fully integrated spaces within the collection galleries creating this close proximity while maintaining a nice separation.
The size restrictions in Let’s Connect help us do two things. First, they ensure access to more artists because we don’t need to cap submissions. Second, they allow us to utilize spaces like the classrooms helping create a dialog between the collection and the submissions.
Constraints are a tricky thing; they can stop or get in the way of projects, but I’m a big believer in using them to help fuel creative solutions. If anything, I hope this story helps show how much you can do when you embrace them.
Let’s Connect is a project of the Barnes Foundation in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia.
Artist Open Call: March 19–April 30, 2018
Exhibition: May 21–June 4, 2018
Artist Announcement: June 14, 2018
Artist Residencies: July 1, 2018–June 30, 2019
