What Are You To Me exhibition at Centrespace Gallery

This weekend, I went into town and bought way too many things and got very tired and annoyed at people because THERE WERE SO MANY EVERYWHERE. On Saturday, I also visited an art college's open day for the foundation diploma, so I guess that's partly why I had so many feelings about what I saw later. I went to visit the Centrespace gallery in the Bristol city centre. I've only been there once before, and it's so tucked away it's amazing it's still open. Here is the street it's on:

Teeny tiny gallery road

I've walked past that road so many times, but today I went in and it felt like walking into a secret room in my grandparents' house; you can hear people talking about their memories (home videos being shown on small televisions or projectors) and as soon as you go in there's soft lighting but there are so many things to look at and you just think what the hell is this? But in a good way.

What Are You To Me is a collection of treasures that the collaborators have gathered from their families - photo albums, suitcases, clothes, lightbulbs, a pipe... You're invited to interact with anything you want to in the exhibit, and there are even biscuits & sweets laid out. It feels so cosy and I just wanted to be so quiet in there because it felt like being in my grandparents' attic, trying to be quiet while I looked through all their things because they would wonder what I was doing if they heard me walking around. Paper luggage tags are placed all around the room, where people have written about memories of their family, and you're encouraged to write your own. A lot of it is in faded sepia tones, but then there are some really stand-out pieces like the wedding dress in a suitcase, and a wall covered in descriptions of items (which really reminded me of unphotographable's concept of "a picture I did not take"). I found it so interesting to see these precious items taken account of so objectively, even though they carry so many memories for the people they now belong to.

Hand-drawn family tree

I've started trying to film the things I see as well as photographing them, so this is my attempt at doing that. What Are You To Me is open at the Centrespace gallery on Leonard Lane, just off Corn Street, until 20th November.

Employment and that

So..... I have a job! (At least for a little while, anyway.)
Urban Outfitters held a recruitment evening last week, and a few days later I got called back for a group interview, then was told I'd been offered a Christmas temping job there.

Anyway, today there was an induction - mainly paperwork - and we got to look around the store and go through some of the basics. IT ALL LOOKS SO NICE AND COOL AND PRETTY AND ORGANIZED, I CAN'T DEAL WITH IT. Also everyone else is so cool and stylish and so what UO employees should look like, and I'm just stood there thinking, how the hell am I even here.
I'm super lucky to have even got the job, and I don't really know how it happened; a lot of my friends applied, as well as around 300 other people which is just crazy (!!) and I think around 20 people were given temporary positions, which is just like whaaaaat. (Very coherent, as usual.)
I'm super keen to get some better clothes because we need to represent the company well and such, so I am excited for my discount card to come through especially! I'm going to do some looking around soon to plan some more outfits, although I'm only contracted for one shift a week so I could possibly get away with being a horrific outfit repeater for a little while.

In other news, life decision of the day is to do an art foundation course for a year and then have another think about uni. My brother went to uni and he did learn a lot education-wise and cooking-wise and life-wise but I know a lot of people who didn't go to uni and have still found jobs they like, whether it took them a little while or a long time. Plus, visual artist and visual merchandising manager are real life legit jobs - like, you get paid for being creative. Amazing.

Basically, whether I go to uni or not, there will be a day where I have to make a decision and start looking for a sustainable source of income. I'm kind of afraid of it, and it's something that really preoccupies me at the moment and has been messing up my mental health over the past few weeks (stress levels have been going super high) but art is something I like doing and there is still a lot of Bristol that I want to see. I'm gonna try and finish applying to uni this year, because it's good practice, but to be honest, I do really wish that I'd asked for more help with deciding what i want to do.

I hope you're okay and you have a good week and stuff!!!!!
- Alice