Lesson video

Hello.

My name is Mrs. Tipping and I'm really looking forward to learning with you today about selecting work and considering the audience.

We're going to do lots of thinking, talking, and exploring today in our lesson.

So shall we get started? Let's go.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to select and present your work so it connects your theme and engages the audience.

Before we start, I would like to introduce you to some keywords we're going to use during the lesson.

Context refers to the ideas, theme, and background behind the artwork.

Cohesive refers to when parts go well together to make a clear, connected whole.

So pause the video here and make a note of these keywords and press play when you're ready to continue.

These are the learning cycles that we'll be working through together in today's lesson.

Cohesive selections and audience impact.

In this first learning cycle, we're going to explore cohesive selections.

Which of these artworks look like they connect with each other? Pause the video here and have a discussion with your peers, and press play when you're ready to continue.

What did you think? Well perhaps you went for the second and the third, as they have quite similar shapes and maybe refer to a coral reef.

Curators must choose which pieces best represent the theme or concept.

Curators will often consider the context of each work when selecting pieces.

The theme is the given topic, the general idea.

The concept is your personal idea within the theme, specific and individual.

The theme or concept is usually the central idea of the exhibition.

This doesn't mean that all the works need to look the same or use identical styles.

The context of individual artworks can often form a common thread between individual pieces.

To create a cohesive selection for an exhibition, artworks should all link back to that central idea, in a way that the audience can visually and intellectually understand.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

When curating, every piece should clearly connect to an overarching theme or concept.

Is this statement true or false? Pause the video here and give yourself a moment to think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

If you said that's true, you're right, well done.

But why is that true? Can you explain this to your partner? Pause the video here and give yourself a moment to explain why this statement is true, and press play when you're ready to continue.

If you said something like, "All the work on show should be connected by and linked back to the central theme or concept, in a way that the audience can visually and intellectually understand." Then you're right, well done.

Selecting pieces that don't connect or link to the theme or concept can make the exhibition feel unfocused.

In a GCSE context, this cohesion shows examiners you can make purposeful decisions that demonstrate a clear journey.

So here, when we remove this piece, can you see how these pieces feel cohesive and connected? And if we insert this piece here, this also connects and links to the others and they create that theme or concept that is focused.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

The theme is identity and the concept is to do with advertising and beauty standards.

Which piece does not visually connect with the others? Is it A, B, or C? Pause the video here and give yourself a moment to think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

If you said it's C, you're absolutely right.

We can see from A and B that we have the theme of identity connecting them.

And you can see that they are advertisements, both women in beauty adverts.

The art students are discussing their possible exhibition selections.

"I really want to include a watercolor of my cat, but my concept is urban decay.

It doesn't really fit, but I love it so much.

The context behind this work is completely different too." Aisha says, "It's a nice piece, but will people get confused about how it all connects? Could you link it somehow, maybe add elements to connect it to the urban setting? Or keep it for your sketchbook, and for the exhibition, make sure there is cohesion in your selections." Examples of how exhibitions can be cohesive include Cornelia Parker's, "Cold Dark Matter, An Exploded View".

She achieved cohesion through a reoccurring exploration of destruction and transformation.

Robert Therrien's "Red Room" creates cohesion by painting oversized furniture red, using repetition and scale to unify the immersive space.

Emii Alrai uses archeological artifacts to build large-scale installations that form a cohesive narrative about her Iraqi heritage, displacement, and colonial histories.

Mark Dion creates cohesion by organizing objects and specimens thematically, using repetition and display to unify diverse materials and guide the viewer.

This brings us to our first learning task.

I'd like you to create a spread of the work you want to select for your exhibition, and review it for your cohesiveness.

You could work with a partner to review each other's selections.

Make notes on sticky labels to give some feedback.

Discuss how to bring more cohesion in by refining pieces of work.

And note down the action you will take to improve that cohesion.

So pause the video here and give yourself enough time to have a go at looking at your spread of work and selecting those for your exhibition and reviewing its cohesiveness.

And press play when you're ready to continue.

How did you get on? Well, let's have a look at this example here.

So the self-portrait and collage connects strongly to identity, but the drawing piece feels disconnected, even though it shows skill.

So we can see here in the first two pieces, they really connect to the idea of identity, but the third piece feels a little bit lost.

"I want to showcase my drawing skills because they are strong.

To link to my theme, I will do some observational drawings of my face." That's a much better idea, rather than the ladybird on the leaf, to showcase those drawing skills and linking to the theme of identity.

So well done if you were able to look at your work and review it, ready for your exhibition.

This brings us to the second part of our lesson.

We're going to take a look at audience impact.

Artists need to consider how their audience interacts with their artwork.

For example, Doris Salcedo carefully considers audience interaction, by creating site-specific works that transform spaces into places of reflection.

In "Untitled" 2003, she filled the void between two Istanbul buildings with over 1,500 stacked chairs, symbolizing absence and the countless lives lost to violence and displacement.

Similarly, in the installations like "Shibboleth" at Tate Modern, she uses the physical space of the gallery floor to shape how viewers move through and respond to her work, encouraging personal and collective engagement with memory, trauma and loss.

Christopher Samuel's, "The Archive of an Unseen", 2021, was intentionally designed to be accessible for disabled people.

The project, which explores the overlooked lives of disabled individuals in history, featured large print text, audio description, and wheelchair access.

Samuel, who is disabled himself, places accessibility at the core of his practice, ensuring that both the subject matter and the audience experience challenge exclusion.

Thinking about audience impact shows that artists are not only making art for themselves, but are actively communicating an idea to others.

Audience impact is about how people will experience your exhibition.

Thinking about this shows you've got a clear purpose for your work, and that you can communicate ideas visually.

If you were the audience at this show, which piece would you want to look more closely at and why? Pause the video here and give yourself a moment to think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Which piece catches your eye? Perhaps it's right at the bottom where the orange piece is.

Or maybe in the top right-hand corner, that green, that light and dark green piece, that captures my attention.

The best selections engage the audience and communicate something meaningful.

An exhibition isn't just about selecting and showing your work.

It's about creating an experience for the people who will view it.

The works you choose should spark interest, emotion, or curiosity in your audience.

This might mean considering layout, space, lighting, and atmosphere, as well as the careful selection of work.

Thinking about how your exhibition will impact an audience demonstrates your ability to present work for a clear purpose, a key part of GCSE Art.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

Thinking about how your exhibition will impact an audience demonstrates your ability to present work for a clear refinement, purpose, or selection.

Pause the video here and give yourself a moment to think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

If you said purpose, you're right, well done.

Thinking about how your exhibition will impact an audience does demonstrate your ability to present your work for a clear purpose.

Space.

The way artworks are arranged in a room changes how people experience them.

If the works are close together, the exhibition can feel busy and energetic.

If they are spaced out, it can feel calmer and give each piece more importance.

Space can also affect how the audience moves.

A large work might make people stand back, while a smaller piece invites them to come in close.

Lighting makes a big difference to how an audience feels.

Bright lights can highlight details or textures, while softer lights can make a show feel calm or personal.

Colored or harsh lighting can change the mood and atmosphere completely.

Sometimes shadows become part of the artwork, as in Cornelia Parker's installations.

Lighting can also guide the audience's attention, helping them focus on the most important parts of a display.

And you may not be able to control the lighting, but you can still consider it when displaying work.

Let's take a moment to pause and check our understanding.

Which two can impact audience experience? The colors you use in your sketchbook annotations.

The way space is used to arrange artworks.

The lighting chosen to display the work.

The time of day you created the artwork in school.

Pause the video here and give yourself a moment to think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

What did you think? If you said the way space is used to arrange artworks and the lighting chosen to display the work, you're absolutely right, well done.

This brings us to our final learning task.

I'd like you to make notes or discuss the works you want to exhibit, and the space and lighting that would best engage the audience.

Consider what mood you want the audience to feel.

For example, calm, dramatic, curious, shocked or motivated.

Which layout or lighting choice best communicates your theme, or the context behind your selected works? And how does this presentation show a clear purpose, rather than just displaying work randomly? So pause the video here and give yourself enough time to have a go at this learning task, and press play when you're ready to continue.

How did you get on? Well, Aisha says, for hers, bright spotlights would highlight details in her pencil drawings, while softer lighting would create a calmer mood around her paintings.

And shadows could even become part of the work, adding drama and atmosphere.

Sophia says, "I would place my large mixed media piece at the center of the display, with more detailed drawings spaced around it.

Bright spotlights would highlight textures in the drawings, while softer light on the central piece would create a dramatic focus.

This will help create coherence so that the audience can understand my theme of identity and notice both the overall impact and the details." So well done for having a go at thinking about the notes you're going to make around the works you'd like to exhibit, and how best to engage the audience.

Before we finish this lesson, let's summarize what we've learned about selecting work and considering the audience.

When selecting work for an exhibition, every piece should connect back to the theme or concept.

Cohesion doesn't mean everything looks the same, but the works must feel related and purposeful.

Thinking about space and lighting helps to create the right atmosphere and makes the audience's experience stronger.

Considering audience impact shows GCSE examiners that you can present work for a clear purpose, not just display it randomly.

Thank you for joining me in this lesson today.

I hope to see you in the next one.

See you next time.