art isn’t just for the oligarchs

The Serpentine Galleries had a problem - young people weren’t coming to their exhibitions. In fact, they weren’t going to galleries full stop. Research showed that they largely viewed gallery spaces as intimidating (both from a POV of imposter syndrome about their own comprehension and from the very real scrutiny they often faced from staff and security) and removed from their personal experience…even when the art shown directly spoke to their personal culture. We were asked to create a campaign that would increase youth visits for Serpentine’s 2021 James Barnor exhibition.

The serpentine is you

An object only becomes art in the mind of the person experiencing it - it’s the relationship between you and that object that creates the experience. We used this as a springboard to reset the dynamic between contemporary art and young viewers, placing the thought at the heart of our ‘Serpentine Studios’ initiative. Created in collaboration with Break Comms, this nine-week programme was designed to amplify young creative voices and reimagine Serpentine as a hub for passionate audiences to engage with art. Nineteen young multidisciplinary artists took over the Galleries in Kensington Gardens to access a curated programme of learning, creative workshops, mentorship and unlimited access to Serpentine’s exhibitions.

Alongside providing weekly creative mentorship of the young collective, we created a new visual identity and social awareness campaign to engage young people outside of the programme to visit the Serpentine and take advantage of its extensive range of free exhibitions. The visual identity was deliberately designed to be adapted easily by the collective, allowing them to re-create their own content published on Serpentine’s channels.