18th-21stMay saw the 2019 WW1 Engagement Centres Festival – Legacies of the First World War which was put on by Queens University Belfast (see below for programme). I took part on the 21stMay with a pop-up exhibition on Digital Centenaries at the Public Records Office Northern Ireland (PRONI). There were various kiosks displaying their projects with talks and discussions in the afternoon, centring around Digital Legacy. The event was open to the general public and ticketed on Eventbright. On the run up to the festival I was in discussion with the Project Officer who said that space was an issue and suggested I deliver a slideshow but I really wanted to print them out, so I had to come up with something that took minimal space but could still display all of my images.
In hind sight I can see why Project Officer would have preferred a slide show as all the other kiosks showcased their projects on screens and I guess being a ‘Digital Centenary’ event, however this wasn’t expressed when I was invited to the day and they knew my work was photographically based. This wasn’t a problem though as it just required some thinking and quick improvisation to achieve my pop up.
As I had my 6 categories featuring 5 images of each, I thought I would print images onto boxes, creating my own structure. I ordered 10 12×12 inch white boxes, which first thoughts were that the general public could just handle but I didn’t want to create a messy space and needed something more streamlined. I acquired some parasol bases and metal rods to create two pillars, containing 5 boxes, 3 sides with images and 1 side with the captions. I printed my images out onto a template 12×12 and then mounted them onto foam board as to reinforce the box and make the image look more professional. The captions used were from several different books to give context to my images, this took longer than anticipated and some cations were rather weak, in which I need to re think for final publication. I stuck the mounted images onto the boxes with Velcro tabs, which meant I could assemble them on arrival at PRONI. Each box could be spin round individually so it wasn’t necessary that all images were kept in their category, which invited the viewer to engage with the images. I created an information sheet to go with my work which included the map of the airfields which I think adds important geographical context.
Stupidly I only took 1 photo and that was the day before just after I had finished assembling them, there were photographers on the day that were documenting the festival and so I wait with anticipation that I feature in some of them.
I shared my stand with another project ‘battle blimps’ which was an excavation project for at WW1 site in NI so this flowed well with the general public. It was a little scary as I stood over my images and engaged with the public but they seemed very interested in my project. I had printed the map and separately too as so the public could take that away. All feedback from the day seemed positive but I would have liked some more photographic feedback, as comments seem to range from ‘that’s nice’ and ‘oh really?!’. I’m not sure if the archive images were obvious enough that they were layered image, but this could be down to a few things. The setting of the festival, not sure if audiences had time to properly engage with projects and also scale, I think my images could have been a lot bigger as to grab attention and view image, the detail etc.
Over all I am happy with the day and how I presented and quickly overcame a displaying issue. I think the images put together worked well for this setting but I need review my work to see if these images would work for another exhibition or to just keep as a publication.
Living Legacies Engagement Leaflet 2019-03-04
Critical Research Journal 
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