Speaking out in front of camera.

 Last Wednesday, a film maker and his assistant visited our shop. They took some shot in store and then they  filmed some interviewing video to advertise our ceramic shop. I came a bit early on that day and I was so nervous about talking in front of camera. In my previous experience, talking to people is fine and that is allowed you make a little mistake sometimes. However, talking in front of camera is not that easy because you cannot make any mistake. If you did, you have to redo it again. Because you cannot make any mistake, it will make you even nervous than the normal situation.

We had three interviewees on that day. The others are the director of our ARI and the artist who is the best seller of our shop. The filming question for them is based on they are artist and project director. For example, what is the best thing being involved in this project? What is enabling you to do? What do you think the pop up project change this old building?

I was been given the almost the same questions. They added one more question for me because I have a different cultural background and I can speak mandarin. There was a story: on that day in the morning, there were two Chinese ladies came in and ask to join our membership before we started to film this interview. They visited our shop twice before, but they cannot really speak English. They asked me to do some translation. I was helping them to communicate between my director and them. Unfortunately, they were not what we are looking for, I guided then to other fashion shops and the market in the street. As a result, the special question for me is”what do you think your language skill can help the pop up project? I remembered I answer that Australia is such a multicultural country. You can not only target the white customers, but also target Asian, such as Chinese Australian. It is a bit easy for me to understand their culture and value and convey the idea of pop up across the culture boundary to non Western people. In fact, word of mouth is the biggest market strategy for our shop. Thus, it is good to have a spontaneously conversation with customers and they would be actually be involved the idea of pop art shop.

I found that if people would just take a look in our shop, we could also mention the pop up project for the public. They usually felt intriguing about the idea of pop up shop and the change of this community. They would be interested in spending some time to do the art and culture discovery. Most importantly, share this fantastic place to their friends and family. To mention about the whole pop up art community in this building, is not only to promote our ceramic shop but also for all the pop up shops in this area. If this pops up shop want to survive in this modern society, we have to make it different from other pop up project. We are not just the space for artists to display and develop their creation but it would definitely contribute to the art tourism in Western Sydney. When it brings more tourists, we will have more attention and then we can get more customers as well.

NOW!!DREAMERS MARKET IS COMING ON 1^st of September!! in church st

This is the link of their facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dreamersmarkets

***Don’t miss it ,you will regret If you really like 100% Australian handmade stuffs!! 

Opening Night for the Exhibition I participated in & A Big Event is Coming!!

It is so busy in these few weeks. I will explain what has been happened in my Internship.

First of all, I accidently got the exhibition in other pop up shop (Our neighbor) in July. This is the photo that I took on that day. This ARI is so different from our shop. After the opening night, we were playing “Piñata”, one of the party games and have so many fun at that night.

AND SURPRISINGLY! I sold my painting!! This painting was finished last year as one of my assignments for my oil paint course, which is the elective course that I selected last year. I never think that I would get this opportunity to sell my painting!! That’s so fantastic!! I also got some inspired idea from the people who like my painting.

This ARI finished their contract with the government and they closed. The one I put my work in was their final exhibition. It is sad for all the pop up shops here because we survive and support each other as an art community. This might be a main reason to attract tourists to visit the place. The locals could also be proud of their art and cultural community. In fact, we cannot survive without each other and that makes sense to me. Customers come in to this old building for coffee or for seeing other ARIs. When they pass by, they might get a chance to pop in our shop. Luckily, we lost one pop up shop, but we will have a new pop up shop come in this building.

I will have an interview from the government next week. That is a part of promotion program for the pop up project. They will film all conversation with artists, intern and volunteers through the interviewing as an attraction to involving people in this pop up projects. Basically, I just need to answer: what the three best things about being involved in this project as an intern? What is enabling you to do and the creative experience you get from this project? I am going to make a draft and then do some practices on that, just in case that I will be too nervous to forget what I would like to say.

We are preparing the coming event-“Dreamers’ Market” on the 1^st of September. I have designed a few postcards for our ARI(Thanks for my previous working experience in a graphic design company, I felt it easy when it come to the design part J) Because of the bad economic in Australia, we have to work out our marketing strategy. We used to have a lot of clients from the government and we had some big sale for Christmas. However, it has been quite in our shop for a while. I think we need to target wider customers. Not only people who work in the government (the high-class), but also the general public (the middle class) who got art taste and they do not want to buy stuffs from two dollar shop. This might be a challenge for our shop because we are lack of people to handle such a big event. We need people and we need more ceramic talent people involved in helping us to run our project.