AND Festival Volunteer Experiences
Date: 2nd.October.2011
Time: 10:00 pm.
The timetables attached show the different shifts I have been doing for the AND (Abandon Normal Devices, http://andfestival.org.uk/) Festival this week. The whole week was very exciting and outrageous with all the uni assignments and voluntary jobs overwhelmed, it’s been very productive and unusually fun.
I checked on the AND Festival official website and came across with some fascinating exhibitions and installations that I would be keen on assisting with. Hopefully the main organizer of the AND Festival, Amy Roberts, had designated me to invigilate some of my preferred exhibitions which includes ‘Cinema for Primates’, ’ The Immortal’ and ‘FACT Exhibitions’.
On Thursday (29th October) My first day work for AND Festival was quite a nervous experience, I was imagining all interesting thing possible that could happen while working. I arrived FACT and went into the Media Lounge, there I encountered with new volunteers and my university’s friend Llauren. Everyone had a big smile on their faces which will lead to a good start before doing the shift. I headed down to TAO Gallery at 6pm (close to Mellowmellow down Seel Street) and there I was, sitting on the chair with all sorts of flyers and information sheets about the ‘Cinema for Primates: Apes as family’. This exhibition was especially regards of a documentation of a group of actual primates watching a short film of humans disguised as primates messing around a house where a female, seemingly tame primate is resting in. The ideology of the film was an experimentation on the reactions of primates towards a range of media and ‘what genres interest them’, which was created by Rachel Mayeri in collaboration with Edinburgh Zoo and comparative psychologist Dr. Sarah-Jane Vick.
The exhibition was set into two big screen, one displaying the documentation of primates’ reaction to the film and the other is the film itself, both playing simultaneously.
My main duties consisted of handing out flyers and information sheets to guests as well as serve them free beer, also to provide them with the best customer service. Not many people came in for the first hour but then the amount of people increased dramatically. Perhaps free beers did great in getting people involve though I doubt it due to guests’ confusing/unaware impression whenever we asked whether they want beer. I believe that human-beings, us, are very interested in learning about our original ‘ancestors’ whose once had become a huge turning point in our history, producing the most intelligent animal on Earth. Every guest that join the exhibition had their eyes stuck on the screens for a very long time, as if they were primates themselves.
At first I was a bit clumsy at coping with guests and shy to speak up. However the chit-chat I had with a new volunteer who joined me calm me down. I push myself up and greeted guests happily and confidently (very important) as they stepped in, offered them information and beers with relatively fluent English. Guests were all nice people, they were a range of age between them all, even babies. The shift didn’t last very long, I worked for 2 hours and a half for my first shift and I must confess that it has been a absolutely lovely evening.
Right after that, I met up with my friend Llauren again (she finished her shift too) and we headed straight down to Chinatown for the screenings. A big TV screen was placed on top of a coach under the middle of the Arch of Chinatown, and there were rows and columns of seats crowded with audiences in the open area watching the played films attentively, accompanied with popcorns and snacks. The screening was called ‘A small cinema’ they were mainly displaying a special selection of shorts ‘looking at eastern perspective with belief infused twist-with contributions from Hong Kong and Liverpool by local and international film-makers’. I have came across with one that I have watched before in FACT Cinema, though I never understood the real meaning of it. Then we watched a comedic supernatural fantasy film called ‘Zu warriors’, made in 1983 directed by Tsui Hark. I wasn’t really paying much attention on the concept behind or what it was trying to denote but the most obvious thing was the abundant use of special effects (that seemed quite impressive at the year) and the connection between heaven and hell. Though it got so late that we left the seats empty to have a deep dream, since we start work the next day in early morning.
On Friday 30th Oct, I started working at 10:30 am and finished at 6:00pm. It was a long shift and I had plenty of places to go to. Even though my main job was to invigilate FACT exhibitions, there wasn’t anything I could help with as many and better volunteers were there, hence I asked for permission whether I could be transferred to other exhibitions who needs help, luckily I was permitted to do so (also because I didn’t want to miss anything that sparkles my interest). And so I started walking around the city looking for other exhibitions.
I went to Bluecoat Gallery and became some sort of shopping assistant for Catherine, the main organizer for the workshop and talk event ‘Level Five’. It was quite ironic that I have told myself prior to the festival never to work for this event as the idea of self-actualization creep me out, but then fate had me united with my fear. Being a shopping assistant was quite a challenge, some of you may be laughing at me, but it’s true as it was my first experience ever. Catherine is a very friendly person so it was quite a good start for me to socialize with her and help out without feeling too nervous. I have learnt several things about being a shopping assistant or just a general one:
1. You got to know places and how to get to certain places/shops to take the objects/stuffs your authority want to with the cheapest and wisest transportation plan.
2. Ask questions if you don’t understand what you should be doing or getting in the shop the authority assign you to go. Ask questions if you don’t know what the things are if you are not aware of what they are exactly.
3. A very essential point is keeping the authority’s contact number in case you need to call her for problems and confirmations.
4. Be confident in what you do whether is a small duty or big role, don’t panic if you can’t do it just try and see what happens, if it doesn’t work out well then face the failure and do it again.
At least, I have encountered with a new fabric shop (Abakhan) that’s been in Liverpool for ages and I have never realized its existence, this is the biggest mistake of an emerging artist! Not being able to notice fabric shops if you love textures and designs (also including museums/galleries/art shops/) is a big disgrace as far as I am concerned!
Back to the topic, I have also learnt that the authority will reimburse your travel expenses and other money that have been spent for work-related purposes. I suppose this is common sense but since I am a bit of an unskilled/inexperienced person I must say it’s fresh knowledge.
Catherine decided to go shopping with me after I got the fabric from Abakhan since it’s quite of a big quantity of things. I wish I was more talkative and confident when we were on our search of objects from the shopping list. The feeling of not being able to provide my best initiatives and help always depresses me and in some way pressures me into making a conversation. My social skills aren’t as good as I expected, there are lots of things to learn about which also reminds me of my presentation skills.
I have to start developing myself simultaneously in different aspects such as being able to speak formally, to give clear and flawless presentations, to express my ideas well academically, to create my own style of drawing, to work for different kind of design agencies and hopefully achieving my biggest dream!
