On Thursday 12 and Friday 13 January 2012, MADEINART, together with the Fabbrica del Vapore, organized a workshop on the theme of MAKING AN EXHIBITION.
The workshop’s aim was to show the participants all the phases of putting on an exhibition, from the concept to its installation. The basic tools for coming to grips with the operation were supplied; individual roles were pinpointed as were the professionals who interact in the organization of a show and the skills necessary for undertaking each individual role: curator, artist, art historian, architect etc.

The programme analyzed the following points:

Concept and planning (venue, contacts etc.); budget planning.
The curator’s staff: roles and tasks (compiling lists, contacts with private and public institutions for loan requests, transporting works, insurance.
Preparing the catalogue (search for materials, choosing essay writers, preparing the mock-up, contacts with lenders and publishing houses, image search, proof correcting).
Planning the installation (sections, panels, graphics, technical problems, lighting).
Fund raising and sponsorship (pinpointing research tools and methods, pinpointing stakeholders, identifying the target audience, map of sponsors, contacts, preparation of presentation brochures, special offers, sponsorship packages etc.)
Exhibition communications (research, concept, theory and techniques for invitations, press file, brochures, advertising…); communications plan (function, research, drafting); press office (role and function, drafting the press release, relations with publications, updating the data base, press review, final presentation); communications with the public; tomorrow’s public; teaching plans for schools and for children; plan and construction of the show’s website (graphics and content); how to make a report (structure, materials etc.).

The workshop was supervised by Consuelo Nocita, organizer of art shows and managing director of MADEINART, and by Gianni Mercurio, an Italian curator who has been responsible for some of the best shows of contemporary art over the past years which included such artists as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat, and Roy Lichtenstein.
The projects (possibly by a group, as indicated, or singly) had to be sent to our email address before 20 February with a CV attached. The most complete and interesting projects were communicated to the senders on 20 March.
Reference: the organization of a curatorial project “a multidisciplinary exhibition on the relationship between individuals and the environment”. The participants in the workshop also had to choose the most apt title, keeping the project’s theme in mind.
The exhibition had to consist of different thematic sections: art, architecture, design, fashion, modus vivendi, and nutrition.
The exhibition had to keep in mind the selection of an honorary committee of people who for some time, and in different sectors, have been involved with the environment: critics, philosophers, scientists, and well-known personalities.
The show could have various curators. For fund-raising and eventual partnerships, it was necessary to involve businesses concerned with energy, the environment, and nutrition.
The show’s aim: to create an opportunity for thinking about the contemporary emergency with regard to energetic and food resources.

Where: the Expo area of Milan and successive stops.
The estimated budget for the proposals did not have to be exact but simply indicate how much the project might cost and how it was intended to be financed.