Olivia Ahmad Talk

Olivia Ahmad came in today to give a talk about her career in both being the curator at House of Illustration and as editor of Varoom Magazine. She was fascinating and so knowledgable, I came away wanting the job she has. Interest in THINGS.

"Illusions add to the texture".

I've been to exhibitions at House of Illustration before and they were wonderful, its so important and special that we have this platform in this country to showcase illustration within a gallery context, and it was really interesting listening to the ways in which going about exhibiting and curating illustration differs from fine art.

The research that House of Illustration put into curating their exhibitions is brilliant - even down to things that people may not even notice or realise, but the extra effort thats gone into it adds even more texture to the experience. For example at the Corita Kent exhibition they screenprinted all of the captions to the artworks instead of just getting them printed !!



and having screens displaying information too!


Putting this extra effort into the effort further immerses people into the exhibition and makes viewing the work displayed a rounded experience rather than just a picture on the wall. For the exhibition about Soviet Picture Books they took inspiration from Soviet working mens clubs to design the exhibition cabinets.

I love the importance that Olivia places on the process. It can be alienating just having a final finished thing like a book? But to show the sketchbooks and the inspirations and the works in progress brings the illustrator closer, takes them away from something that feels separate.

She also talked about her role in Varoom and how she changed it to be more current when she took over as editor. Changes like making it smaller but chunkier, and matte paper stock, and working with a design studio who got rid of the format template so each page has as different feel, relevant to the content. Theyre also able to make 4 different front covers with the print run for no extra money so by having 4 different colourways it makes the magazine seem more collectable??





This was such a brilliant talk into career paths I knew nothing about like curation and running a magazine. Both seem like really rewarding and interesting fields which I might actually be interested in. Someone asked how she finds juggling both of these jobs and her answer was basically that she was exhausted and has no time off :(. I do really want to be a freelance illustrator but I'm starting to want to go into something else alongside which is more of a stable PAYE type job. To hear someone talk so passionately and enthusiastically about history and context and bits and bobs and collections made me so excited to know that there are careers which need people who are interested in these things!! Also as a side note Olivia was so so lovely, I think I have a bad preconception through my shyness that these very successful people are for some reason intimidating or scary, but they're really not they're just people who are lovely and enthusiastic and approachable. woo.