Today I was introduced to Fred after liaising with him over Facebook for the past few months regarding the Stories from our Cities project. We sat down and discussed everything that needed to be completed for the opening of the exhibition on the 20th. To begin with I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work that needed to be done as I didn’t realise the scale of the exhibition – he has arranged guest speakers,  performers and the work is being displayed to a professional standard. I clarified the different aspects he wanted me to do and ensured I had a clear picture of his vision of the exhibition in order to meet his expectations and have the work prepared before we leave for Rongo. He was really thorough which helped me engage with his vision and the work he has been doing in Nairobi. I admired how enthusiastic and driven he was and this encouraged me to crack on as I didn’t want to let him down.

In order to get the work down, I had to leave my video group which was unfortunate as our group were on a roll and the students were really progressing today. However,  I sat and did the work in the same room as the group so I could keep checking in with what they were doing and didn’t slip out the loop.

I explained to Jen what was required and we managed to get it all done this afternoon (including getting info from people back home) which was a success! I would have liked some more time to work on the project (get more images, stories, video clips) and more time working alongside Fred but that wasn’t possible due to the busy nature of this trip. Nevertheless, me and Jen made the most of the material we had. This did mean leaving out a few aspects of Brighton which we didn’t have material to reflect it such as the lanes.

Ultimately, I am really really pleased that the exhibition is going ahead as it was off the cards for a while… it is the part of the trip I have worked on/looked forward to most so I can’t wait to see it all come together on the 20th. A good end to the trip 🙂

The next step is planning how I am going to do the speech at the opening because I am real bad at public speaking and I’m REALLY nervous already… luckily Jen and Sarah said they would do it too and I’ll have to get some lessons off the master of delivering speeches (Sonja)

I will blog about the video workshop tomorrow once we have completed it 🙂