MoMA Media Launch

This week was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) media launch at the Art Gallery of WA. It was a really busy time for the people involved both at the gallery and at PPR. I worked a couple of days offsite at the Art Gallery of WA and even got an early, private viewing of the MoMA collection, which was incredible! My main tasks were to put together the hard copy and electronic copy of the media kits, checking and going over the final materials with the staff from the art gallery and collecting materials for the launch. What they say about how important project and time management is at Uni, it really is true. Anything can go wrong even if you have made sure you’ve done everything to make sure that doesn’t happen. A couple of days before the event, there was an issue with the bags which were for the media materials. I picked up the bags, only to discover they were too small, even after one of the consultants had checked the dimensions over the phone. The consultants involved were concerned they weren’t going to be able to find new bags in such a short time, as bulk orders and coloured bags are usually ordered from the eastern states. But luckily, one of the consultants had a friend who worked at a bag company and she managed to secure us the bags we needed. They were a different colour the original bags, but they turned out looking better. This also shows how important it is to make connections!

Aside from helping with the MoMA media launch, I also helped one of the senior consultants do some research for PPR’s media training. I had to find bad example clips of people dealing with the media, in particular, Kevin Rudd. The main problems I picked up about Rudd was he was always over-explaining his points, he was very verbose, not getting to the point and talking inappropriately when he thinks the camera is off (We all remember the ‘Happy Little Vegemite’ clip?!) Undertaking this research, made me think, as students, maybe we should be analysing more high positioned figures and learn from them.

I’m already half-way through my placement, it has gone so quickly and I will be continuing to work on Perth Fashion Festival and MoMA for the rest of the month.