Entry 4: Getting closer to Opening Week!

In the lead up to opening week, PPE staff had the task of arranging and organising all the public programs components of the Biennale - this included forums, artists' talks, Guided Tours, etc. Seeing as Guided Tours are a component of my Internship, i'll touch on those in a few of my later entries. But in preparation for the forums and artists talks, the interns had to acquire a range of materials and supplies for the forums, artists talks and even things for performative artworks. I was sent by Nisa and Dougal on a shopping excursion to find a number of things for both the office and forums to take place during opening week. I think this task was probably one of the most exciting and strangest i've ever been asked to complete, but it was a great experience, especially trying to, as i mentioned previously, buy to budgeted amounts. I found it difficult to source the most commonplace things, like decent tablecloths, etc. But it was an adventure nonetheless. Amidst this, we were arranging forum plans and checklists, artist pick-ups and trying to juggle a number of different tasks. During our shifts in the office throughout the week, we also got to sit in on inter-departmental meetings - with the curatorial team to finalise the cockatoo island map, and marketing as well. With regards to the map, and all of the Biennale visual identity, it was interesting to see and external party working with Johnathan Barnbrook's designs for the biennale. Nisa and I had to take the kids' day map (which will again be addressed in a later entry) to the design firm who created all the free materials, and seeing their cohesion to the theme which was designed by another firm was interesting. I think that setting up and preparing for the events in opening week was a great insight into how things run in arts organisations and how strict budgeting can be.

Entry 3: More Officework and Research

In the weeks leading up to the opening of the Biennale, the Education Interns were asked to do a range of research and contact duties. One of these tasks was to contact schools from disavantaged areas, or schools from the Priority Schools Funding Program to allow them to partake in the Biennale incentive which would reimburse them for the travel from georgraphically distanced areas in the greater Sydney region to come out and see some of the Biennale Venues (including MCA and Cockatoo Island). Coming from Western Sydney, i can appreciate this scheme by the Biennale, as it takes a fair amount of travel to get to the city, and these sorts of incentives are a great way to ensure all schools in all areas of sydney are able to be part of the Biennale and it allows for students to see an amazing amount of international, cutting edge contemporary art which they may not be exposed to normally, or will only see in the form of documentation. The challenges, however, of contacting schools and raising awareness and interest was rather difficult with only a few schools responding to our requests in the first few weeks.

As well as this, the interns also had to contact places for coach hire which would service an opening week event - the curator bus tour. Often, activities like this one would take up to a week to finalise to due to the collection of prices and quotes from organisations, and finding a price which would be allowable for our budget.Often times, this would require having to explicitly state the not-for-profit nature of the Biennale and its significance in the art world. Working in the office also required working alongside other departments like marketing, curatorial and events to ensure that all our planned events were adequately marketed and had an up to date guest list. Its always interesting to see the ways in which different departments work together.