Cleo Fagan, curator of our new exhibition 'Once Upon a Picture' talks about the process of putting together an exhibition for children.
Curating the Once Upon a Picture exhibition for children has been a lot of fun. What do I mean when I say ‘curating an exhibition’? To curate an exhibition in a gallery basically means to choose artworks to put together in a room (or rooms). When curators curate an exhibition of works by different artists, sometimes they do so by having an exhibition theme. My idea for this exhibition came from thinking about fairy-tales, stories and how some artworks seem to have a story to tell. This is how I came up with the exhibition themes of fairy-tales, myths and stories. Stories can be made and told through image, words, music, acting, dance and more. In the pieces featured in Once Upon a Picture, stories are made using the language of pictures and images.
I so enjoyed searching through different artworks to find the ones we included in this exhibition. My search has taken me on a journey into a world filled with puffins, upside down seas, trees trapped in jars, giant things, miniature things, myths where locks of hair became stars, dreams of fairies, a fascinating history of mountaineering and food that isn’t quite what it seems....
When putting the artworks in the gallery, The Ark takes great care to ensure that all the artworks are hung at just the right height so that children can see them properly. However, an exhibition doesn't really come alive until you have an audience and it was so exciting to see the gallery full of children as we started the first week of the education programme. It was brilliant to see the children exploring the gallery and discussing the work with each other. This informal reaction and their thoughts and ideas were then deepened and developed in a group discussion facilitated by artist Paula Henihan, before they went upstairs to the workshop and created some colourful characters of their own inspired by exhibition artwork Centuarius (Big Fish) by Alice Maher.
When curating an exhibition, it can often seem that when all the artworks are put together in the gallery, they form a clear story (or stories). In this exhibition there are lots of possible stories waiting to be released by the imagination (and children have the best imaginations). I hope that you can come and visit us and maybe make some stories of your own....
Find out more about Once Upon a Picture
About Cleo Fagan
Cleo has been part of The Ark team as Visual Art Programming Assistant on a 9 month internship. "This exhibition has come out of my final phase of my internship here at The Ark where I have had a very positive experience working with Visual Art Programme Co-ordinator Aideen Lynch. In my previous work, I have curated lots of exhibitions for adults and also programmed several contemporary art programmes for children. However, I have never before curated an exhibition for a child audience. This has been an insightful and enriching opportunity that has given be the chance to consider all the interesting things about exhibiting contemporary art for children."