![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/149\/2018\/03\/DSC5016a-300x199.jpg?resize=320%2C212\")
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One of the my recent blogs I wrote\u00a0was about my experience as an Art Ambassador working \u2018behind the scenes of the John Hansard Gallery<\/a>\u2019. I felt this enormous sense of accomplishment when I was joined with thousands of people\u00a0 crowding over\u00a0 Guildhall Square to witness the launch of Studio 144 on 16 February. It was a statement that showed our Arts Ambassadors’ promotional efforts had definitely paid off but I\u00a0didn’t want my involvement with Southampton Celebrates to end so quickly. So, a\u00a0week later, I found myself working on the front line at\u00a0John Hansard Gallery\u00a0<\/a>welcoming and stopping people running into Rhona Byrne’s enticing installation\u00a0Huddlehood<\/a>\u00a0with their shoes on.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always been curious about how galleries operate and intrigued to find out how people go about working in them. I was intimidated by the thought of only being able to work at\u00a0a gallery if you\u2019ve had past involvement working or studying art or museum curation, as if I wasn\u2019t going to be qualified to gain the experience due to my background reading Geography for\u00a0the past three years. John Hansard Gallery were looking for temporary gallery assistants during their opening programme, Sampler so despite my concerns, I applied and got one of the roles because of my curiosity and enthusiasm to get involved in the all aspects of arts, and not because I\u2019d done something similar before. I started my gallery shift as a student from the faculty of Social Science and finished it with an arts and culture experience in the bag. It was a mind opening experience and not intimidating after all.<\/p>\n My first ever invigilation shift at the John Hansard Gallery happened to be on the last day of the Sampler\u00a0<\/em>exhibition, before the gallery closed to prepare for its official opening in May. It was great to hear so much positive feedback and excitement from the public who visited that day. There were even visitors who came back twice in one day, just to get the last glimpse of the artists\u2019 work!<\/p>\n Over the hours of my very first and last shift, I met some very interesting people and local artists.\u00a0 I stumbled across one artist and WSA Alumni,\u00a0Amy Scott-Pillow<\/a>, who has curated her own exhibition\u00a0(re)construction with Abigail Day on at the\u00a0K6 Gallery<\/a> until 1 June 2018 (Go check it out if you want to see what a pub inside a telephone box looks like).<\/p>\n We danced and sang a little at times when the gallery was less busy. I felt so relaxed and welcomed when joining a team which had been working tirelessly for over a week and reinforcing their rapport with one another. It\u2019s always hard in any social situation to enter a new group of people, when the bond and working rhythm had already been established, but the other invigilators and I quickly became friends and we exchanged Facebook immediately (after our shift of course) to keep in touch with each other\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n Now I can tell people that I\u2019ve worked at a gallery and I certainly cannot wait for John Hansard Gallery to reopen in May!<\/p>\n Southampton Celebrates<\/em>\u00a0took place on Friday 16 February 2018, celebrating the new homes of Nuffield Southampton Theatres, City Eye and John Hansard. \u00a0Sampler<\/a>\u00a0ran from 17 – 24 February 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/arts-at-unisouth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/149\/2018\/03\/DSC5015a-300x199.jpg?resize=300%2C199\")