My business pitch
For MPL we were asked to do a business pitch, and present our interests for a project that can be done and funded locally. So this is my idea in its primordial state.
An art gallery, this is a project that I was trying to do for a couple of years now. In the past years that I`ve spent in Preston I was shocked how a city which is centered on a university is completely isolated from any artistic contact. Until now I thought that the only art gallery is the victoria building lobby, and started doing some research, and I ended up confirming that the nearest modern art gallery is situated in Longridge, 15 miles away from the center of Preston.
Preston got its status as a city just a couple of years ago, and that is quite understandable being dwarfed by the hulking presences of Manchester and Liverpool in all possible domains, but how can an establishment like Preston call itself a city without any artistic input or output. And saying that there is no output would be a blatant lie because there is, the artistic departments in the university are very well represented and have a very wide spectrum of high quality work.
And there is a demand, because there isn`t any competition at all, as soon as a gallery opens it will hold monopoly on what art Preston will be watching, or be aware of. And that monopoly can be used to great success to bring in famous artists from anywhere else, which will become an asset to the university as well through the possibility of cultural and artistic exchange and dialog with other entities be them artists or other universities.
And beyond anything this will be empowering for the students. Having their work seen in a gallery by potentially anyone, and yes, I was convinced about this by Kevin, our work has real value, and could be presented in a gallery at any time. As soon as you are convinced that what you are doing is meaningful and will be presented to the public and the press, your output is basically double, or at least that’s how it works for me. And I`m sure there is no shortage of creative people who want to have their work displayed in town, but simply don`t have the means to do so at the moment.
Ok now about how are we going to do this and how it is going to benefit us. This idea is nothing innovative, it`s basically one of the examples from class, but changed to suit our needs. Preston city center can be described best in one word, complacent. There is a high number of decrepit unused buildings from its glory days, just lying around, not even a joke, which can be used. Not only are creating an art gallery but we are linking it to Preston`s all but forgotten cultural past. We need to devise a strategy to be presented to the city council. We can assure maintenance of the building, the curating of the gallery for which I hope we get Louise`s experience to help us with that task, and the best part for us is that we might be able to get a permit to redesign the façade. Have all the 3rd and 4th year students enter a competition for it to give the modern art look and connect it to the prestonian heritage. I know it`s not designing a building but for most average Joes the façade is the building, and we get to leave our mark on the center of Preston. We can also design and redesign the interior spaces every lets say 6 to 12 weeks, through in-house competitions, in order to better suit the next exhibition. We can have the interior of the building be a critical piece of art and work on it with other departments such as fine art, or product design.
How do we get money you say? Well I hope our department can get some capital to start the thing, there is also the possibility for having an entrance fee and then we can rent it out to different departments such as fine art, advertising design or new media. And if we get enough attention we can invite different universities to rent the space out to exhibit their work and challenge ours through it.
I know Michael hates long repetitive and bland texts so I`ll stop here by saying that there is definitely a need, there is also a demand, there is a way, and I am passionate about this project because it`s one I keep thinking about and hoping to achieve for quite a while now.
AGiurgea 