Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Approximately 173 members of the public participated in the site events in addition to the 1000 visitors to the Unit 2 exhibition. Approximately 143 from this total number were comprised of ‘spontaneous’ participants who independently joined a number of the site events. 20 of the 42 members of the public that could be accounted for were people with a visual impairment. The ages of audience members ranged from 18 to over 50. The audience came from the following geographical London and Greater London boroughs: Kent and Essex, Lewisham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Ealing, Camden, Newham, Kensington and Chelsea, Waltham Forest and Wandsworth.

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Site Events

Participants in the site events were contacted and given an opportunity to respond to their experiences.

“I am writing on behalf of Mr Steve Jerrom as I participated in your project Architecture Parallax: Visual Crisis. I visited the Sir John Soane Museum with a client who has visual impairment and would like to say that my client enjoyed the visit very much. May I take the opportunity to say thank you for giving this opportunity to my client and would like to hear from you if similar projects are run in the future.”
Yoges Ravindran on behalf of Steve Jerrom, E-mail: 25.11.03

“We were pleased to participate in the ‘experience’ and found it very different and quite demanding. Working through the project reminded us how important flexibility becomes when involved in such a complex subject – both materially and psychologically. It was interesting to visit the realised result.”
June Bretherton and David Whitehead
Bretherton Consultancy, E-mail: 25.11.03

“Thank you for you invitation to Sir John Soane Museum on 10 November 2003. All of my students enjoyed participating in your project and they are keen to go back some other time to explore the museum. Since they didn’t know anything about the museum, it was a great introduction to them. We think the talk was very interesting and we thoroughly enjoyed the tour. We haven’t been to the Unit 2 Gallery yet, and we might organise a visit before the term ends. We look forward to visiting the gallery soon.”
Chris Komoto
Westminster Kingsway College, Letter 26.11.03

“I enjoyed taking part in the project as it gave me access to a building which I had hitherto not discovered and which proved to be full of interesting sensory experiences. This was the John Soane Museum. My only criticism was that we had such a short stay there - I am sure there was much more to discover!”
Andrew Hodgson, E-mail: 10.12.03

Exhibition
The exhibition at Unit 2 Gallery, London Metropolitan University, had an attendance of 1000 people, with an average of approximately 30 visitors per day. 200 guests attended the private view including representatives from creative organisations and agencies in the area including Artsadmin, The Whitechapel, private galleries and funding bodies.
The students who attended events were unanimous in their sense of achievement and pride in having been a part of such an ambitious project, and being able to see the result on display in the gallery.
Visitors were encouraged to record their response to the exhibition.

“Thank you for your invitation to write a short response to the project on show until last week at the Unit 2 Gallery, London Metropolitan University. I visited the gallery and spent a long time watching the video clips from the trip to the Sir John Soane Museum. I feel poorly qualified to respond to the exhibition eloquently, however I would comment the following:
• Watching the video screen in the darkened gallery was faintly disturbing: looking at people who are not looking.
• Recognising the bewildering variety of altered perception when every object is reflected and abstracted by its context.
• The participants have individual realities based on their own perception of what they are experiencing.
• The viewer struggles to hear the commentary and construct their own perception, yet is encouraged to consider the ambiguity of the various other filmed participants... what pictures are in their minds? How do these pictures differ from what I see?
Congratulations on a very interesting project.”
Kate Nepstad, E-mail: 16.12.03

“Really experimental work. I like the different perspectives on the projection.”
Vasco Teixeira, 19.11.03

“Amazing approach.”
Claris Shali, 11.11.03

“Enigmatic and creative.”
Peolao Redig, 11.11.03

“Fun to work on, fun to look at.”
Kaya Jenner, 11.11.03