Install / Layout Planning

My designated install space (highlighted by blue circle) is a smaller space with a large window allowing for plenty of natural light to come in.

Visualising my work in the space I plan to hang the majority of the drawings on the longer wall, with a couple on the smaller wall in the back right. The artist statement will hang on the wall that juts out slightly.

By starting to place the drawings into groupings, I was able to create links and connect the drawings together where originally there would have been no connection. This in turn allows me to use my neurodivergence, picking up on forms and patterns that could be missed by the average person. Once I had my groupings sorted, I started playing around with layout formations.

As I want people to move through the space, reading the work, I started with a singular strip going across the wall but knew I wanted to try playing with the vertical space of the wall as well. By bringing a couple of the groupings above and below the first strip, I was starting to create connections of form and pattern across multiple levels. After playing around with a couple possibilities of this new layout, I eventually made the decision to bring the two groupings on either end of the first strip down onto another level, further playing with the vertical space. Doing this still allows the viewer to read the work, but instead of reading in the typical left-to-right fashion, their eyes can bounce around the work as they move through the space.

I wasn't sure about the gap then created in the layout, and so brought over a few of the drawings that I was planning to hang on the smaller wall, just to help fill the gap. Although this felt better, the layout was now feeling too structured—harsh like a brick wall. I shifted these drawings up by 1/2, disrupting this harsh structure, but creating the feeling more of cohesion. After doing this, I received some feedback of a few people passing by. They stated that the install layout I was working on intrigued them as even though they were looking at the drawings, they also found themselves reading in between the lines, the spacing between drawings, as their eyes/brains were creating connections, forms, patterns in the negative spaces.

Once I was happy with the layout I started to take measurements and do a little bit of math to figure out where the drawings would sit on the wall. As I have been treating my drawings as my notebook/sketchbook, I used the drawings to jot down these measurements.

At the bottom left of the first drawing, I had added the number of a fact that I had found out while creating my groupings. The number of combinations that can be made with 36 items (in this case 36 drawings) is 68, 719, 476, 736.

The upside-down yellow text in the second drawing shows my notes while taking measurements of the horizontal space.

Wall length: 4250mm

x20 Drawing length (147mm): 2940mm

x19 Drawing gaps (5mm): 95mm

Wall edge to drawing: 607.5mm each side

The blue diagram in the third drawing shows my notes while taking measurements of the vertical space.

Eye height: 1500mm

Drawing heights: 210mm

Drawing gaps: 20mm

Install was nice and simple once everything had been planned out. I added a strip of painters tape to the edge of the wall so that I could mark out my heights without marking the wall. From here I used my laser level to extend those height marks across the full length of the wall and started to temporarily hang the drawings up with blutac incase of needing to make any little changes. Once I was happy with how everything fit onto the wall, I started removing the blutac and hanging the drawings up with nails. With everything hung, I did a quick clean of the space—removed tape, wiped down walls, swept the floors. Before I left I pulled each drawing forward on the nails so that they hang off the wall.