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Explore Pop-Up Exhibit

Goal

Host and run a pop-up exhibit to provide exposure to local artists who use Instagram as their main sharing platform.

My Role

Within our team of four, I took on the role of Project Manager, overlooking and organizing all of the venue outreach, partnerships, artist outreach, branding, social media marketing and event planning.

Overview


With a limit of $100, our team set out to pursue a hands-on business idea to address a problem persisting in the community. Through a real-life exhibit of Instagram's "explore" tab, we curate experiences that allow communities to discover, support and interact with local artists who want more opportunities to be discovered.

Our team:
Created a 2 week pop-up event at Art Share L.A. in the Arts District
Had approximately 900 people visit
Increased following and exposure for 15 local artists
Established partnerships with Art Share L.A., USC Iovine and Young Academy and The Pie Hole for the event

As Project Manager, I was in charge of Operations and ensuring that both the big-picture and smaller details would come together for our event. I delegated responsibilities and tasks to my fellow teammates.

Branding


I created and established the branding of our exhibit - making it bright, playful and modern.

Partnerships

The Power of a Hashtag

In addition to venue, food and financial partnerships, I then went to Instagram to find artists to feature - and then the cold-DM'ing (direct messaging) began! Many of the artists were eager to participate as this was an opportunity to enhance the publicity of their art. We were looking to display a variety of art media. Our artists' work included watercolors, color pencils, oil paintings, digital work, photography and pastels. I finalized our list of 15 Featured Artists.

I realized that hashtags are super powerful and beneficial! I found many of our artists through hashtags such as: #losangelesart #losangelesartists #laartsdistrict #laart

Social Media Outreach


As a pop-up exhibit all about leveraging artists on social media, we also used social media to market our event. We utilized both Instagram and Facebook and encouraged the artists and friends to share our event for the maximum reach.

Interactivity

As an interactive element, visitors were given heart stickers at the front to "like" their favorite pieces. Throughout the gallery, visitors placed the stickers onto the walls as if they were using Instagram's like feature in real life.

Social Media Impact

Our exhibit was very shareable and was intentionally "Instagram-able" to increase exposure for artists through an organic reposting of the art.


Explore Pop-Up Exhibit


Our first Explore Pop-up was scheduled for April 20th through April 21st 2018. We hosted it at Art Share Los Angeles who kindly donated their venue to us. We chose to donate all of our proceeds back to Art Share L.A. because we truly support their mission of “providing an open space for artists, students, and community supporters to teach, learn, live, showcase, perform, and connect.” After our two gallery days, Art Share L.A. asked to extend for another two weeks! 

We were also extremely happy to see so many of the artists show up to the exhibit to see their art in person! Federico, one of the Featured Artists, was present during the entirety of the exhibit and was able to explain his art and express his vision to the visitors.

Our team had an incredible time working together to make our first Gallery Pop-up. I'm happy that we were able to stay true to our original idea of hosting a pop-up and giving exposure to online artists. The result was exactly what we could have hoped for. Artists shared heartwarming comments such as "This is the first public viewing of my art 😊." It was wonderful to see the community come together to experience the art in person. Thank you to everyone who attended, enjoyed and shared our event.


Impact


One of our main goals was that these artists gain exposure that translates to more interactivity on digital platforms. We were excited to see this happen over the course of the exhibit.

Highest increase: 195 Followers
Average: 30 Followers
_______

Total gained followers for all artists: 453 Followers

Explore Pop-Up in the Media
Featured on the front cover of the Daily Trojan:

Check out more of my work!

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