In this episode, hosts Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn are joined by Jela Prancic and Susan Gardner, our talented collaborators from the art collective, The Fifty-One Percent. We are pulling back the curtain on our highly anticipated upcoming exhibition, and let’s just say, we are throwing the traditional gallery rulebook right out the window!
Whether you are an artist planning your next exhibition, an art enthusiast craving an immersive art experience, or someone who usually feels intimidated by stuffy white-wall galleries, this conversation is for you.
We dive deep into how we are designing an exhibition centered entirely around the audience experience to make art truly accessible to the general public.
In this episode, we explore:
- Redefining the Gallery Space: Why we are ditching the quiet, “look but don’t touch” mentality to create a fun, welcoming, and accessible art environment.
- Interactive Installations: How we are bringing the show to life with hands-on elements, from walking through live digital projections to exploring our custom social media corner.
- The Power of an Art Collective: How collaborating within The Fifty-One Percent allows us to push creative boundaries and build a contemporary art show where there is something engaging for everyone to do.
Join us for an inspiring conversation about breaking barriers, engaging the community, and making art a hands-on adventure rather than just a spectator sport.
Listen to the full episode now, and be sure to subscribe to Art Crush so you never miss a conversation!
00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to Art Crush with artist Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn, where we talk about being an artist, the art world, feminism, and more. In this podcast
00:00:24 Speaker 1: today we are going to be talking more with the fifty one percent, our collective, including Jela Prancic and Susan Gardner and our upcoming show in Derby in England. We haven’t decided the show opening date yet. There’s a lot of details up in the air with this show, but the one thing we do know is the fifty one percent will be at the gallery in the town centre in Derby in England, showing our work. And it’s not just another art show.
00:00:53 Speaker 2: And it’s actually in the Artcore Gallery in Derby. I’ll just add that in because you didn’t mention that.
00:01:00 Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. In the Artcore Gallery in Derby. So it’s in an established gallery, but we are are using the gallery place. We are not working through the curator or anything else. This is our show using a space that is appropriate for our inaugural show. with this show called The Wild Within, we are creating a show that is an experience. It’s almost like, an installation in addition to getting a chance to interact and experience the individual pieces that we are making for this event. So one of the things that we’ve been thinking about is after Covid, there is this desire to go out and do in-person things. I’m seeing that here in London, as I do a lot of networking events in person, that even the people who would never have attended networking events pre-COVID are showing up. We’re all tired of being in our houses or in our offices or our rented desks or whatever. Just seeing the same walls every day, the same people or lack of people every day. We want to actually have experiences that light us up and maybe even influence what we’re thinking and how we feel about our lives. And I know even with my own kids, they’re making plans with their friends and coworkers outside of their usual spaces to increase their experiences. when we are looking at creating the show, we are looking at giving, almost a reward or an experience to the people who choose to come out and engage with our show. We don’t want it to be just come out, try to sound smart and look at some art. It is. We want to want you to come out and maybe feel differently about the art you’re engaging with. Have an experience you can talk about, share with your friends, and maybe think differently in that process. Sophie, do you want to sort of talk a little bit about what we’re planning on doing?
00:02:59 Speaker 2: we’re actually putting the audience at the foremost front of our exhibition. Whereas in the past it’s been about, oh, let’s see, don’t the pictures, don’t the artwork look amazing? We’re not saying we’re not going to think about that, but we want people to come and have a journey themselves and have an experience themselves, and they can get as involved or not involved as much as you want or you feel comfortable with. Don’t worry, we’re not dressing up as gorillas and jumping out at you. Paula would probably want to do that. but, yeah, we’re taking ideas that we know about sort of theatre and, exhibitions and experiences that people go to. We’ve taken the idea of the immersive exhibition. Now obviously we’re doing our first show on a budget. Hopefully they will become more and more spectacular. But this is our first one. So we are hoping to project images of our artwork, close ups, on the walls, on the floor, on the ceilings of the gallery, as well as seeing the artwork we will be using sound. We are thinking very much about the sensory experience. Um, the sounds of the journey going on the journey with our artwork, when we do curate it, we are going to think very carefully about the story that the exhibition is telling, as well as the story that our own individual pieces are telling. And we know that, um, museums and art galleries have thought a lot about how to engage children, for example, in their exhibitions, but not so much the adults, which I think is an oversight because we like to be involved. So there will be things that you can look for quizzes, competitions. And also we’re going to have a social media, corner or space within the gallery where people can interact with our artwork. We’re going to be there all week. So you know, you will come and find you might be really lucky and find all four of us there, but we will be there so we can be involved in your reels, in your photographs. you can then post them onto your social media page and tell everybody about the exhibition. But then you’ve also got that memento. we are at the moment talking about merchandise. Fifty one percent merchandise that has not yet been decided what we’re going to have, but we want people to be able to have that many souvenirs have been going back to since time began. When people go to places, they want something to help them remember. So we have we’re lucky we have photographs now we have our social media account. So yeah, it’s going to be a sensory experience that hopefully you will come out of. Moved not just by one of our pieces, but by actually the journey you have taken by seeing our exhibition, which I’m not sure if we’ve mentioned the title, but it’s called The Wild Within.
00:06:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, we, we come together with a lot of different skills, which I think is really helpful. So Yala has a background in, doing projections and, animation and really curating people’s experiences, which is fantastic. And I’ve got a background in animation as well and engaging audiences. PHE comes from a dramatic background with her drama training and everything else. and Susan brings these dramatically huge pieces with a different viewpoint that makes us all think differently. So we all come in with these skills and these. These intensities and these. Abilities to. Create a show that will be audience centered. As PHE said, that’s probably The best term for it is audience centered. So when we are discussing all of this, We talk big and then we figure. Out what actually makes sense. So Ella and I sat down, probably about two weeks ago. And looked at what we could do for lighting, for dramatic lighting for the show. So let’s talk a little bit about that. Because we, we did sit down for quite a while and look at our possibilities.
00:07:24 Speaker 3: there’s the act of using projections or LED screens where you have to create a tremendous amount of content for. And you have to plan out. What’s playing on which screen, what’s being projected from each, device. whereas there’s also the ability to use lighting. And lighting isn’t just. Flicking on a switch and a room is bright and then it goes dark when you switch it off. Is that lighting can also incorporate lighting effects, so you can create the illusion of imagery. Through a light that changes colors, that has a filter that casts shapes on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling. So that became of interest because it can fill a large area very dramatically, but more abstract, so that those effects don’t take away from the artwork that we are showing, but rather create an ambience for the gallery setting. So we’re exploring that and of course, our planned curated artwork on the screens as well.
00:08:42 Speaker 1: So when somebody walks into the gallery, it’s almost like they’re going to be stepping into another world. We’d use the idea of us way back. I think there’s maybe one or two locations left, but way back when, Rainforest Cafe was a big deal. When you walked through the gift shop and into the restaurant, immediately the lighting changed. There was sound, there was thunderstorms, there were animals moving and things. Obviously, we’re not doing the animals moving, but we are trying to create that, stepping into some place different. Now, if I had my way in budget, we would be doing something like the Van Gogh experience, where we would have all sorts of moving projections and whatever. That’s not going to happen. we are self-funded and we are starting where we start and we’ll build on it. But we do have a lot of ideas. we want to obviously ensure that we’re not overwhelming our audiences either. We want them to experience the art.
00:09:36 Speaker 2: We want people to see our artwork.
00:09:38 Speaker 4: Yes.
00:09:39 Speaker 1: Which is really important. Yes, but to walk away understanding that they’ve seen something different. Because we are not waiting for the permission to show up and do things according to what has been done. We are riffing off of some of the stuff that that seems to be working, creating that audience centered experience. So like the Van Gogh experience, even medieval times, for example, another experience that I don’t know if that translates to the UK or not, but certainly in North America, medieval times is this place where you go in and you have dinner there and supposedly in a medieval arena and watch knights battle it out, you get a chance to interact with the knights and the wenches and see the horses and everything else. And, that sort of interactive experience. It’s almost sort of, again, something that has been ringing in the back of my mind. Not that we’re bringing horses in by any means, which I would absolutely love. I know Susan, I absolutely love that too. But, we are sort of wanting people to again feel transformed. We have this idea of costumes or not costumes, but clothing as well. and Susan has been really great about doing all these renderings of us in various scenarios and sharing to give us ideas. It’s been really fantastic, to see us as a group. Now, hilariously, some of the renderings, because it is AI make us look ridiculous, but they you’ve been giving us a lot of really good ideas into how we can show up as well. So, Susan, I want to sort of talk with you about what your, angles are with the show and, and what you’re seeing about the wild within and what you hope that we can build, for this very first show.
00:11:14 Speaker 4: Um, I’ve always, deep down, I’ve always wanted to be involved in something like this, really. And I’ve seen very, very few art shows that have pushed things into the unknown. It tends to be just the white walls with the art and very, very quiet. You go in and you feel a little bit self-conscious. You’re walking around thinking, oh, I’m not quite sure. You feel like you’re being looked at and you maybe you haven’t really got a chance to interact with the art at all because it’s all about, um, I don’t know, there’s a barrier between you and the art because or the, the person who’s looking at the art and the art because there’s this sort of not a stigma, but there’s certainly an expectation that you’ll know a little.
00:11:57 Speaker 2: Bit about the preciousness and do not touch. And, you know, yeah, I’m always telling people touch my artwork. It’s fine.
00:12:08 Speaker 4: It’s all very there’s lots of starched flattery about it all, isn’t there? And we don’t want that. We don’t want that. We’re not going to do that. But, um, so I’m really, really excited. I literally have always wanted to go, let’s have music, let’s have, installations. Let’s have just more, just more, just more fun because it’s. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s entertainment. I mean, art is like, um. Yes, there is a serious side to art, but it’s also, a cinema ticket or a meal out. It’s, it’s entertainment, I think as well as the serious side, you’ve got to get people. To really look forward to going and really think, well, what are we going to see? What’s. What’s it going to be like? We know it’s not going to embarrass anybody. We know that people aren’t going to be made to feel foolish to go there. They’re going to be feeling included. They’re going to feel like a warm welcome. but they are also going to be surprised and hopefully exhilarated. I think it’s going to be an exhilarating experience for people. I’m really, really excited by it. And I think, um, not just because it’s not, not because it’s us doing it, although we are the ones that are going to make it really, really cool. but because for the people that are going to come see it, it’s going to be really exciting. and hopefully other people will, will, will run with this idea as well. So we’ll have a little, a few more exciting, exhibition experiences for people to go and look at as well as our own because we’re obviously going to have more than this experience, this, this one exhibition, it’s going to get better and better, I imagine, as we go along.
00:13:37 Speaker 1: Part of the outcome we want with this show is to show that we do not have to follow what has been traditionally been acceptable. And that’s really important, because there seems to be this, this is how you do things. So not only are we sort of tossing away the you must work in this way and do things in this way, but we are tossing away. The audience must participate in this way. And a lot of times when you go to art shows, especially when they’re held at universities, because I’ve been in art shows showing off, the post graduate classes works and things like that, you have to sort of show up and, and say something smart to go with the art. And if you’ve not been in sort of the academic art world, it can feel very intimidating or make the audience feel stupid. so we want to make sure that art becomes, I’ve used the term in the past, intellectually affordable, that people feel like they can come in however they are, and they don’t need to say something smart about it. They can like it or not and use those words. They can connect with it or not and use those words or don’t use words at all. especially if the words are negative. Please don’t share those with us. But but we want we want the general audience to feel like the art is there for them. It’s not there for people with a buttload of money. It’s not there solely for people who are going to write reviews or critique or whatever. We don’t give a shit about all of that part of it. we care about the experience with art and to change the narrative around and the connection around art with the audience. Because it is true, as Susan said, that there is a disconnect between the art that artists are making and the audience feeling like they can come in and have a good time and enjoy themselves, that you have to be a certain way, dress a certain way, speak a certain way to attend an art show. And so we’re turning that on its head entirely. and I think that’s important because, you know, when we do come in all with different personalities, it’s important for us to also lean on those personalities. So Susan is a hell of a lot of fun. She’s hilarious. Always, always gives us good laughs. and. And she politely laughs at all of my terrible jokes. And so she’s keeping the the show fun for the audience in a way that we wouldn’t have without her. And so each of us brings in that sort of angle, which is what I said in the beginning, when we all come in with our different lenses, our different experiences, and come together to create this, being mindful of what we each bring to the table is really important. So if you do enjoy the show and love it, then you can thank Susan for that because she made it fun. Uh, so yeah, um, no pressure. No pressure at all.
00:16:16 Speaker 2: And no fun whatsoever. No.
00:16:18 Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
00:16:19 Speaker 1: Yeah. And that’s not what I was implying, but like the different the different angles.
00:16:23 Speaker 4: So yeah.
00:16:27 Speaker 1: We’ve talked about the immersive experience that we want to create, including sounds. So we look around and take in what each of us are doing, but also seeing what’s going on in the world. So Ella has released some of her pieces with audio, especially her latest piece with audio that immediately made me go. We need that. Not specifically that audio, maybe, but we need audio in there as well. For our audiences to come in and feel like they’ve stepped into another world. And we’re not talking necessarily audio that’s like pop music, the top forty or whatever. We’re talking about audio that sets a mood or a vibration in the experience so that it plays in the background and helps you sort of transport yourself into this other world, I guess is the best word for it. what we’re really hoping for is that when audiences attend, because we are running this for seven days, they will go back and bring their friends. It’s free to enter, free to attend. we want to sell our art, obviously, but we want to also let general audiences and artists know that the way things have always been done do not need to be the way that we have to do things, or the way that we should be moving forward. Because I think with all the changes going on in the world, the way things have been done should be tossed to the side and we should be showing up differently as artists, as, central creators and, guiders of humanity. If we have Stem without arts, we are missing out on important conversations. The arts include history, right? Understanding where we’ve come from. Um, arts include projecting forward visual artists also allow people to imagine and hope and, and remember their priorities. Like we do really important work as artists, we spark conversations with our art. And so we want more people to engage with the arts and understand that a society without art is a society that is cold and, unfeeling and perhaps ending up a lot like what AI does right now, which is spouting the same stuff over and over and over again. Just a flat sort of baseline of stuff without the peaks of inspiration and creativity and leaps of ideas that artists have. And we practice doing that when we create our work. So connecting our audiences with arts, connecting our audiences with our art, is a huge step in us affecting change not only for other artists, but for, our society in general. And we start small like it ripples outward, we will start small, but we’re hoping that that change, hoping we are doing our damnedest to make sure that change does, does ripple outward as usual.
00:19:17 Speaker 3: The whole, you know, as artists, there are a lot of, stages that we go through in terms of how we not only show up as artists, but how we show our art in spaces. And a lot of artists are reluctant to even put titles on their artwork. Which is terrible. So we’re not only looking at that. Of course we have. We all have titles to our artwork. We have a title for our show, and we are also changing the way that.
00:19:51 Speaker 2: You wouldn’t read a book that didn’t have a title, would you? Exactly.
00:19:57 Speaker 3: So we’re we’re taking a lot of bold steps with this show. how we work together and how we come up with the whole concept of our art not needing to be, simply on the walls with the exact same titles. You know, the little placards that go next to our art. We are saying that we can use other mediums to enhance, compliment or add to the art experience. And the other thing is that we are building our own characters of ourselves, and how we will show up at this show, how will be presented in our marketing material. And this is combining all of our skills. You know, fees, theatrical background, and Paula, Susan and Fee being artist educators. I have to add to is that you teach people of all ages how to paint, draw, create art. And I have in my past, curatorial assistant background where there was a little bit of pushing the boundaries and how art was installed and presented. So we’re, we’re really making a groundbreaking experience for people to come to the show and to feel even hopefully, that the space itself, art core can begin to utilize all of the equipment that they have on site to create exciting experiences for the community.
00:21:42 Speaker 2: I was just going to add another thing is we want people to come and view art as if they’re going to see their favorite band play in a gig. The excitement when you can go and get to see live music. We want people to feel that when they come to see original art in the flesh, so to speak, and that is why we’ve talked so much about how we present ourselves, how we want. We don’t want to be apologetic. We want to be unapologetic, and we want people to be excited, to see our work and to buy it, and to have the experience that we have with sharing our passions. We’re putting our hearts right out there, and we want you to come along to our core meet us, inspire us, and hopefully we’ll inspire you, too.
00:22:40 Speaker 1: I think this comes back to being in a collective because we said in the last episode when we were talking with Yellow and Susan that setting up an art show, a pop up show essentially by yourself is really, really hard. And certainly with all the moving parts we have, we, each of us with our skills, couldn’t do it by ourselves. And so this is one of the strengths of the fifty one percent is coming together with our varied skills where some overlap and some don’t, and making something that’s bigger and better than ourselves. This wouldn’t work with every collective. I’m not saying we’re the only collective this would work with, but it wouldn’t work with every collective. You have to be in a collective if you choose to be in collective with people who do share values, who do have the same level of ambition and desire and follow through. So being in a a group where people have ambition and no follow through is not very useful. It just it really doesn’t help because you end up with just a lot of hot air, right? And a lot of people are like that. They like the idea of something and then they don’t want to do the hard graft. And so when we join together, it took it was weeks. I think we formed the collective after doing twelve weeks of weekly meetings and working together as individuals before we sort of went, you know what, actually, we should form a collective. It was a while, and I’ve known both Yella and Fi for years. I’ve known Susan on and off for years as well. So we all had this sort of knowledge of each other. Um, to a certain degree. So we already came in with an understanding, which is really important. And we defined what we wanted from this collective, not just from the show, which is important, but from the collective as well, because we want to ensure that we do all show up in ways that end up being equal in some way. so that we aren’t just, you know, two people or one person working really hard and the other people are riding on their coattails. And we’ve seen that with other art collectives where they’ll have a group of whatever, seven or eight people, but it’s three doing the work and the other ones are just there for the ride there for the free publicity.
00:24:52 Speaker 2: I think we’ve all been part of those.
00:24:54 Speaker 1: I think so too. Yes, yes. So that’s really important to us as well. So when we show up in the show, understand that there was no one person who did the work. It was all of us doing that work together with the common goal, which we have just decided well before we said, let’s make a show, is we want to change and center the audience in the art experience. We want to create an experience, as Fei said, where it feels like going out to a concert. It’s exciting. it’s an event that you don’t want to miss. It’s not something that you can watch live streamed later on or whatever. You have to be there in person to see it. So that’s really important. But understanding that we individually couldn’t have done that without forming this collective is also crucial and sharing ideas and being vulnerable with each other. And in doing that is also impacted the art that we make. And we alluded to that in the last episode as well. Like fee’s art has become a lot more vulnerable and has changed in its direction, which is really wonderful to see. So if you’ve been following Mark’s art for a few years, you’ll have noticed that her last two signature collections have been tremendously moving and involving stories. I know from my own self. It has impacted my art as well, because I’ve done the journey from pop culture to playing with abstract, which is definitely not where I want to be, to doing a couple of landscapes and some surreal art. And then I’m back at portraits. But it’s not pop culture. It’s a deep connection with the subjects in my portraits and a desire to create a communication not only between them and the world, but myself and them, and then the art and the world. So there’s this whole these multiple layers that we’ve influenced in each other in order to create the best pieces we can and probably better than, than we have. So as we wrap up this episode of Artcrush and and then get on with our day. or wrap up the day because the UK is five hours ahead of Canada. I just want to sort of go back to why should somebody come out to see our show in Derby at the Artcore Gallery that I’m going to start with fee on that one.
00:27:05 Speaker 2: if you are able to come, you don’t want to miss out really. I’ve been talking a lot with people in Derby because I’m the person who lives just outside Derby and you know, so I feel an extra extra pressure in a way to try and get as many people in. But we want to learn from each other. I think there is so much to say. the opening evening we will be talking and it will be a very Exciting opening for something new and very, very different. And if you want to experience a different type of show, but show gig. Exhibition, whatever you want to call it. come and help us develop. Come and give your, your views. Let’s, you know, we’re not saying that we’ve got it right, but we know things have got to change and we’d like to invite you to be part of that change.
00:28:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. We are daring to be different because we don’t expect to get it one hundred percent right, especially in the first show. But we do have the courage and the skill set and the desire and ambition to try to be different, which I think is important as well. Uh, would you like to say anything about why somebody should come out to the show or come and experience it or anything about our show.
00:28:35 Speaker 3: I believe that people should come to the show. The Wild Within to be held at art core. to not only, you know, to attend for the sake of getting to learn about a whole new way of showing artists work in established gallery spaces and to connect with a community that’s growing and building internationally.
00:29:04 Speaker 4: I definitely think as somebody that quite recently lost mobility and lost the ability to go out for quite some time, Um, talking about a year really of enforced stopping in and missing everything. I’m even more, even more inspired to make this such an amazing event that you literally, because it’s in person, you can’t do it online. It’s going to be really rare because you can’t do it online. It’s not all going to be shared beforehand. So you can have a look and see what all the highlights are before it happens. It’s all going to be happening at the show, so you can, talk about it for years afterwards. It’s going to be such a good event and I’m really motivated because of that partially, but also because it’s going to be something like the others have said, it’s going to be something completely new and hopefully the start of something to come. So come along and be part of the very first iteration of of our show.
00:30:00 Speaker 1: We do have plans for future shows, as PHE had said previously, Hopefully in the UK we’ll do a second show based on how this first one goes. And then we’re aiming for Toronto or somewhere in Ontario, Canada in twenty twenty seven. So every show will be different. If you’ve seen one, you won’t have seen them all. Because we intend to improve and adjust the shows as we go based on feedback, on watching the audience’s experience things, on the things that we learn. So we aren’t worried about things not working or not turning out quite the way we want because we learn from everything. There’s no failure, there is just testing and there’s just data. So come and be a part of helping us launch this, maybe be inspired to do it yourself. If you are also an artist and want to create your own audience centered art experiences, and let’s shake things up a bit. The art world is huge. We don’t plan on toppling anything, But we do plan on definitely changing the narrative around how art shows can be because it’s been same, same, same, same, same since forever. And it is time for a shake up. And if that’s down to us doing it, it’s down to us doing it because we saw a problem. We’re ambitious and we’re capable and we are ready to do that. So there will be more information about the wild within on our website at the fifty one percent dot com. All of our websites and our collective website will be listed in the show notes. So come and check those out and get more information as we have it. So by the time this podcast episode airs, we should have more information available. the show will be free to attend. It will be in Derby, England at the Artcore Gallery, which is in the center of town, and we hope to see you there. Make sure you tell your friends, make it a day out. Come and see us and chat with us, and we look forward to meeting those of you who can come. Don’t forget to listen to Artcrush on Spotify, YouTube, audible, Amazon, Apple Podcasts, and your favorite podcast app. Make sure you also subscribe and share with your other art friends. Because we are having discussions that are different from every other art podcast. We want to ensure that people with the desire to create art and show up actually can see that how you show up can be defined by who you are and what you want, rather than what you think the art world wants. And that’s really important to us, and we will catch you in the next episode. A big thanks to Yela and Susan Gardner for joining myself, Paula, and Fee Marks in our podcast. We look forward to bringing you on future episodes as we go through the year and as we do our shows. Thank you very much, everyone for listening, and we will see you in the next episode.
