ICA Visit

After our presentations to the class we walked with Sarah from LCC to the ICA. She wanted to show us how accessible it is to us (it took an hour!) but also to stop and show schemes that promote audience interactivity out and about london. 

As the ICA is closed on a monday we were allowed in through the staff entrance to explore the back of the ICA and its rooms. We spoke to staff who were in charge of education  explaining about their dynamic, artist-led programme. Especially working with people with learning difficulties, the blind and heard of hearing, she explained that through her work she saw first hand how art can change lives especially work on self esteem and confidence. We were also introduced to the ROLAND which is the ICA's magazine. They use it when there is not always the opportunity to show the text, images and film of the artists influences. There is a lot of pressure for the institution to be 'branded' however the idea of rules would not really suit the ICA, however the Roland magazine allows them to be creative without following the brand. The Roland is an area that allows people who are really interested in the work to explore it in depth but also a way of presenting the material and open things up which might help people understand the practice of the ICA. 

The ICA is having a lot of architectural and interior work done to merge the reception, bookshop and box office into one generous space, we spoke to the architect working on the ICA who gave us insight into the reasons behind the redesign. The focus of the work was stripping back as for decades the entrance hall had been subject to a steady accretion of signage, partitions, furniture and services. It had been fractured into its neighbouring different functions, a corridor for cinema, a cage for books, a wall for prints and so on. By stripping back and painting out, the room gained coherence and clarity. Reuse was a principle theme of the design, avoiding new elements to the space, rather transforming what already existed.  

Through my research so far and the visit today I have found that the ICA is quite an underground gallery space, or as it has been referred to, ‘an art gallery for artists’. This idea is also seen in things like the signage which recently got painted over because the visitors are expected to have an inquisitive and intriguing eye. The signage being painted white makes the space feel clean and non intrusive as it prevents an overload of information which could infringe on artists work. The concept is that the visitors should explore the space and without obvious signage and direction this makes it able to happen and turn the visit into more of an experience of exploration. I want to take this into my project and incorporate it in my project outcome, the idea of exploration and ensuring that the ICA is not branded.