Promotional material and strategies

I want to focus on promotional material and my strategies for documentation, audience, and feedback. I will share photographs and a video of the opening event as well.

I used social media, namely WhatsApp, to send out save-the-date notes and formal invitations. I wanted the nest to be the main focus but did not want to reveal the actual wire nest until the exhibition. My daughter-in-law, a graphic designer, created the invitations. Below are images of these invitations. We used layering of the actual nest and my wire nest to create the visual image for the invitations.

I added a link to the exhibition on my website and regularly changed the three images at the top of the home page. This can be viewed at: https://karenstanderart.co.za/hotel-kalahari/

The first social media post about the upcoming event was the above save-the-date image, posted on 13 September 2024 and planned to be shared six weeks before the opening event. On 25 September 2024, I sent out invites to the opening event. I placed the dates for the exhibition on my Facebook and Instagram accounts. In this promotional activity, I asked that people who wanted to visit phone beforehand and that I would then share a location pin and confirm the time of the visit. I was overwhelmed by the reaction to the opening event and general interest in the exhibition. Local artists and gallerists shared their interest in attending.

Twelve more posts followed after that, which implies at least two posts per week for the next six weeks. I used videos and images of how the work reacted to the exhibition space and wrote about my experience of the work inside this space. Below are a few examples.

Below are some examples of posts on Instagram and Facebook

I learned that I had not activated viewer traffic to my website for the last year (I created a .co.za address and never activated Google Analytics on this site) and could unfortunately not see how my website was visited.

Below are some statistics I gathered from my Excel spreadsheet and Instagram.

Invites indicate the number of WhatsApp messages I shared with individuals, and Reply to attend the total replies from each invitee—couples would now become two persons. In contrast, an invite was only sent to one person, whether they were a couple or single.

The figure below shares the accounts I reached on Instagram over a period of 4 weeks before the event.

The figure below shares the top content viewed by accounts which viewed my posts over the same period.

The figure below shares the location from where people viewed my posts on Instagram over the same period.

Below are some images taken during the opening event

After the opening event, I sent all visitors personal thank you messages via WhatsApp and received positive written comments and voice mails from almost all these messages. I did not have a visitor book available, and in hindsight, I think it would have been a better option for feedback. Most feedback focussed on the experience with the work and was shared in conversations and some on social media or WhatsApp:

Feedback covered the following topics:

• personal and visual experience;
• others saw the event as a nest for socialising and connecting,
• found it very well organised,
• was thought-provoking,
• looked and valued the process behind the work and saw it as hard work/labour/many hours.

After the event, I made a short video with a few photos I shared on Instagram.

Practical things about the event included ablution facilities, parking, the flow between exhibition space and public space where visitors could have drinks and snacks, and where to have Prof Thomsom’s short introductory speech. An outside toilet had to be renovated, as it was being used as a storage space. My husband and son created a lovely rustic facility, and I plan to hang the big charcoal drawing of the nest in this space after the event. The exhibition space had to be cleared of all the farm equipment and cleaned up, and electricity for lights had to be installed. This work was scheduled to be completed at least a week before the exhibition, and I managed a schedule on an Excel spreadsheet alongside the catering planning and marketing.

The days after the opening were slow, and visits were more personal. I enjoyed conversations about my process and getting feedback from the viewers on their encounter with the work.

Reflecting on this blog and my experience, I realized that my learning process in art and life became integral to the exhibition itself. A good takeaway is that what sustains my creative identity is not external recognition alone but the ongoing commitment to make and share work that resonates with my lived experience. This approach will allow me to navigate changes in my practice with a grounded sense of purpose and to be resilient even as external aspects of recognition may fluctuate.

Below is an edited video of the opening event: