"...this exhibition aims to disrupt, break down and re-evaluate linear histories. In examining the remnants of time, an eternal present emerges, a collective cultural memory appears, and chronological time becomes replaced with a mnemic delineation of time."

Tuesday 6 April 2010

Event: "Spread The Word" 23.03.10




“Spread the Word” – in conversation with MA Contemporary Art Theory took place on Tuesday 23rd March at the Wee Red Lounge at Edinburgh College of Art, the second in a series of discussion forums. Six invited guests and eleven MA Cat students engaged in a lively debate on marketing art exhibitions. It served as a useful and creative knowledge exchanging environment whereby we informed our speakers of our exhibition practice whilst we simultaneously garnered professional experience and ideas from experts in the field of marketing the arts and audience development.

Our six speakers included; Louise Anderson – Marketing Manager at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Emlyn Firth – Senior Designer at ISO, Glasgow and consultant at Central Station, Alex Hinton – Marketing Manager at The Audience Business, Sandy Smith – artist, and Jim Wolff – Digital Planner at the Leith Agency.

In terms of structure, the evening kicked off with general introductions and presentations which explored the many ways in which to market the arts. A discussion ensued which focused on agreed topics of audience development, viral marketing and visual identity. We emphasised the importance of identifying target markets and marketing to them appropriately and with relevance. With our exhibition in mind, it was suggested that perhaps we need not focus on quantitative marketing but rather qualitative – in other words, not aiming for maximum gallery footfall but for specific markets that would reap benefit from the show, such as the established art crowd in Scotland and wider areas. On discussing viral marketing, we all agreed that this relatively new phenomena could be amazingly beneficial to reaching arts audiences as it is free and relates to the existing ‘merry-go-round audiences’, or the established art crowd in Scotland. It was agreed that the visual identity of our show should reflect our broad theme and that it wasn’t necessary to have a brand identity since this project is only short-term. Overall, it transpired that we are fortunate in having a certain degree of creative licence to develop this show as students, since we are not tied to any governing or funding bodies thus avoiding the mandatory ‘tick-boxing’ other arts institutions must regrettably follow when serving art publics.

We are very grateful to our six speakers for their time, support and great advice. From their valuable input we will continue to drive forward our creative marketing plan. We will pinpoint our audience, maximise our online presence, and creatively communicate our central mission and theme through means of a strong visual identity. It was great to hear that our guests found “Spread the Word” an interesting evening for them to socially network ‘offline’ and to discuss these pertinent arts marketing ‘hot topics’. It was fantastic to meet these great people and we will most definitely stay in touch. Indeed their invaluable support is still on-going. Thanks guys!

Photographs by Stephen McGarry, with thanks.

www.stephenmcgarry.org

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