HCJ Project exhibition discussion

[2Roses]

We could post the final call for entries and an outline of how the exhibit would work in a public section of the website. Anyone could submit work for consideration.
If the artist was really interested in the forums and inner workings of the exhibit we could also suggest they apply for membership (recruiting). That is not a requirement of entering work into the judging.

That's what we mean by keeping it simple.

[bert]

Anyone could submit work for consideration. .

I'm a little concerned that doing this would create a large flood of submissions which creates allot of work for any "curator" (who / how an exhibition is still to be discussed).

We could run selection for example, by creating a public group on Flickr (moderated by site members) where people are invited to submit one example image, but doing it that way would exclude people who do not have a Flickr account, which would possibly include a large number of people we would want to be involved.

If the artist was really interested in the forums and inner workings of the exhibit we could also suggest they apply for membership (recruiting). That is not a requirement of entering work into the judging.

The main reason I think it would make sense to keep it "in house" is to tie up funding.
We haven't discussed funding yet, but there are not inconsiderable costs which would be involved in organising a travelling world wide exhibition.
Without moving away from the "in house verses open model" too much could you sketch out how you feel any funding issues could be resolved with an "open" just apply model.

[2Roses]

Exhibits rarely suffer from too many submissions. Quite the contrary actually. Particularly exhibits where the participants have to pony up a chunk of money. Which is the perfect segue into why we will need to open this up to as many people as possible.
All those that are prepared to throw $1000 per person into this project please step to the front of the line. Think that number is crazy? Start crunching some numbers. The point is, more participants dilute the individual costs.

There are three main sources of funding for a project like this. We will need to avail ourselves of all three.
1. Artists
2. Galleries
3. Sponsors

Each of the three funding sources will try to push the bulk of the responsibility off onto the other two. The determining factor of how much of the proportionate costs each source is willing to bear will be return on investment. If an artist is asked to put in $1000. they will only do so if they have a reasonable belief that they will make at least $3000 to $4000 back. The same is true for the other sources. Our package needs to speak convincingly to that topic.

Once we decide to go public with this, we will want to shop it around on every networking site and blog in creation. That is why the call for entries package has to be complete before we go public. There will be many of us distributing information. We have to make sure it is the same information in every instance.

[bert]

Exhibits rarely suffer from too many submissions. Quite the contrary actually. ...

It is certainly true that interest is difficult to whip up, but if we get this "proposal" right and can market the idea collectivity the response could be very large.

All those that are prepared to throw $1000 per person into this project please step to the front of the line.

It is refreshing to have someone understand that the costs won't / can't be zero.

Each of the three funding sources will try to push the bulk of the responsibility off onto the other two. The determining factor of how much of the proportionate costs each source is willing to bear will be return on investment. ... Our package needs to speak convincingly to that topic.

True / well put. How successful we can be with this is balancing:

1. A large enough pool of people who want to take part (reducing the individual cost).
2. Against the finite number of places (we need some gallery input on this)
3. Against the number and "quality" of the venues (personally I do feel we need some venues before we could go live, as that's what closes the "interest loop" e.g. brings in more submissions at point one.)

Once we decide to go public with this, we will want to shop it around on every networking site and blog in creation. That is why the call for entries package has to be complete before we go public. There will be many of us distributing information. We have to make sure it is the same information in every instance.

Completely agree.
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OK how about this proposal for making applications public?

When we've tied this up and are ready to "go public", I make a public form for applications.
It would have form fields like:

Name
info (field for artist statement?)
Image URL (a URL to ONE image which the entrant considers their best / typical of their work)
Web site URL
Project member Yes / no / applying / etc
... Other fields to be agreed before going live

The form submits to a live web page which could either be public or site member access only, and there are a number of site members who are allocated permissions to clean up any joke or spam submissions, so that we, collectivly can keep the live list tidy.
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That way we could have a publicly accessible form for collecting information, from which the exhibitors would be chosen (by whoever /however we decide that gets done e.g. curator etc).

Comments

[2Roses]

OK how about this proposal for making applications public?

Perfect! IMHO.
You da man Robert.

[bert]

Any other comments on this point before we close and move on?

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[qwallis]

updated the draft proposal

This discussion seems to have withered a little, which is a shame, as we're not going to achieve anything unless we pad this idea out fully.

I would propose that, seeing as we have now settled on "open registration", that we try and bring some more people into the discussion.

Who agrees

If that is agreed upon then I will promote the thread, and would ask that everyone considers inviting other artists to join in the discussion.

[2Roses]

We don't agree. It is quite possible to talk an idea to death. Most people find the committee planning process stifling and mindless, and they drop out in frustration with the glacial pace. There is a saying in the business world, "fast and crappy beats slow and perfect every time". In other words, there is a premium for getting it done and getting it on the road.
Here is how we do it:
You and us finalize a draft proposal and present it to the current participants of this group for feedback.
The feedback is finalized into a formal proposal which we start shopping around.
Lets do this thing!

[qwallis]

... It is quite possible to talk an idea to death. Most people find the committee planning process stifling and mindless, and they drop out in frustration with the glacial pace. ....

I am not desperate to get the whole world involved in this discussion.
Only intent on keeping it alive.

... There is a saying in the business world, "fast and crappy beats slow and perfect every time". ...

But we are going for slow and perfect I guess?

Here is how we do it:
You and us finalize a draft proposal and present it to the current participants of this group for feedback.
The feedback is finalized into a formal proposal which we start shopping around.

Do you mean:

Carry on as is? (This thread IS public, it's just that hardly anyone comes here).
Move the thread into the "site member" forums? So that it is only viewable by "site members".
Or something else?

Lets do this thing!

Hear hear!

[2Roses]

Robert, our experience is that slow and perfect may work for making jewelry, but it is the kiss of death to business ventures. This proposed exhibition is a perfect example of what happens when things get bogged down in endless discussions.

To move this forward we recommend:

1. Take this private between you and me - email me directly at XXXXX X XXXXXXXXXX X XXX
We will quickly work through the pertinent details and craft a complete draft proposal for the exhibition.

2. The draft proposal will be personally and individually presented to a selected few core members and galleries with a specific request for feedback.

3 The feedback will be incorporated into a final public proposal, which will be released to the community of artists and galleries via our normal channels of communication.