Faith is the Director/Curator of the Edinburgh College of Art Window on Talent (WOT). The WOT is a new initiative from Edinburgh College of Art run by a second year Intermedia student, Faith Limbrick. A 24/7 'window on talent', the window gallery showcases the best of new and upcoming artists and designers at Edinburgh College of Art to a new public audience. The windows are located on George IV Bridge and Victoria Street, and are part of Edinburgh's Central Lending Library building, a brilliant location in central Edinburgh. The windows give students the opportunity of reaching an incredibly diverse range of Edinburgh residents and visitors who walk past. The WOT works to breaks down the barriers between the public and the art world, offering a new type of public engagement and alternative to conventional gallery spaces. It gives people who may never have considered going into an art gallery an opportunity to experience art work.
The windows are in such a prominent place, and works are on show 24/7 so public interaction is constant because people are drawn to look in the windows. Each artists has a personal statement displayed alongside their work with their personal contact details as well as details of The WOT's blog page and email address. The blog is a place where anyone can leave feedback on art works or enquire into purchasing items from the windows.
With the WOT Faith wanted to raise the profile of Edinburgh College of Art and talented students to the public in Edinburgh and to try and remove the barriers between the art college and the public.
The concept for the WOT occurred around the opportunity to enter a competition run by the Scottish Institute for Enterprise called the New Ideas Competition in November 2009. This helped in developing a business plan. From November to April Faith researched, built up networks, found a venue and planned the first exhibition in the windows. The space is free of charge, which means it can offered to students free of charge too. Faith works on each exhibition around her university course and is exploring extra funding options to help develop the project further.
The WOT is currently on its 2nd Exhibition. There has been a huge learning curve regarding just organising and implementing the project as I have never done anything like this before.
I was pleased about just how enthusiastic people where about the idea and how people wanted to get involved in different ways. Taking on co-curators from final year students, has been an unexpected pleasure. They are more established within the college so have a wider network of people to tap into, opening up the opportunity for new and exciting exhibitions I couldn't have created by myself.
