IC:Innovative Craft Blog

New job for a week

Posted Wednesday 6 August 2008, 04:44pm

Last week involved an unusual career move. On Sunday 27 July, I was a Freelance Curator and Lead Director of IC. By Monday night I was honorary (in the sense of unpaid) Project Manager of an £ 8 million building site.

Week plan: to arrive on Monday 28 July to instal two major exhibitions at Dovecot and to organise the Reception display area with One Eco Home. Beautiful objects and their artists had arrived from around the world. Text panels, set build, labels all ready and waiting. 400 guests had positively responded to the opening on 2 August.

Week reality: Dovecot from Monday 28 July to Friday 1 August inclusive was a hard hat building site, with no front to one half of the building, filled with well over 100 workmen, awash with dust, mud, flailing wires, burst pipes and no lights.

Somehow mid week we manage to convince all contractors that nothing mattered as much as getting this building open on time. Somehow throughout the week international artists exercised patience and nerve as their objects nestled in their packing amidst the chaos. Somehow we managed to get delivery of 300 light fittings and employ, at 24 hours notice, 6 professional fitters from Tower Productions to fit 300 lamps in them. Somehow we managed to call in emergency night security at 6 hours notice. Somehow a combination of weavers, friends, relatives and paid helpers became a professional installation team who, in 24 hours, installed 3 major spaces in hard hats and yellow high visibility vests: 80% of whom had never put up a shelf before. Somehow we got a Temporary Occupation Certificate at 5.25pm on Saturday 2 August and somehow, at 5.30pm the doors opened to the new exhibition spaces at Dovecot with three outstanding exhibitions, looking beautiful, professional and ready. From then on it was pink champagne, delighted guests and oblivion.

This week I got my old job back.