Olivia Welch

7 July to 3 August

 

Reflections on the value of 

Professional Development & Australia in the Arts

Venice Biennale | Australia Pavilion, 2015

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Monitoring the artworks, asking people to resist the urge to touch and providing further information to visitors is a basic outline of what filled my days as a Venue Attendant at the Australia Pavilion in July. With the latter point, people were genuinely engaged and curious, an ode to the evocative and meaningful work of Fiona Hall, but also the more is more wunderkammer style of the exhibition. There was always something to talk about and always something people wanted an explanation on. Often these conversations would end with the visitor remarking that “Australia has the most talkative and informative staff” and then asking us “why” that was. The answer was always very easy and always the same. We were not simply there as security or to hand out flyers, as was the case with a number of the pavilions, and we also were not just given our positions lightheartedly, but were awarded them as a part of a professional development program run by the Australia Council for the Arts. We are all artworld professionals in various sectors. In my team alone we had experience in artist run spaces, commercial galleries, art fairs, private galleries, arts funding organisations, institutions and independent projects. We all brought very different things to the table and learnt a great deal from each other. On top of this, we were thrust into a situation that none of us had ever directly experienced before, using the advice from our preceding team and the many protocols in place to guide us through this incredible month long journey.

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Verity Hayward and I had the same first day, a week after Lili Belle Birchall and Jane Barlow had learned the inside secrets of the building, the Biennale and the exhibition, 'Wrong Way Time', from Team 2. We were taught how to open the outward panels that become the door and window of Corker Denton Marshall’s impressive black box spaceship and were given a run through of the exhibition. Seeing the show for the first time was thrilling. After studying the works individually, reading countless essays and watching every online clip that mentions Hall’s name, seeing the installation as a whole was beyond exciting. The impressive building and the exceptional work were then met with comment after comment expressing admiration for the exhibition. We had visitors leaving in tears, truly touched by the thought-provoking nature of Hall's work and the strong environmental message that questions human intentions. We had people inspired, people uplifted and people leaving pensive and quiet. These reactions, the space itself, and the artworks, honestly made us all feel so proud to be Australian and so proud to be in the arts, a feeling that is sometimes hard to recognise when at home. Being in a situation that allows you to see what Australian art has to offer on the world stage, not only in the Australia Pavilion, but also in satellite exhibitions and Okwui Enwezor’s curated spaces, swells one with pride - as Australian artists have a unique, interesting and internationally valued perspective. - Olivia Welch

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