What should the studio look like? How do we get there? What happens along the way?
Created by Duchamp & Sons, Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective, this one day takeover invites you to see the studio through the eyes and ears of young artists. Choose your own path through temporary installations, sound works, activities and spaces for creativity and rest.
This takeover marks the culmination of three months of exploration and collaboration between Duchamp & Sons, artist Shepherd Manyika and guest artist Ben Connors.
Join Duchamp & Sons members in their working studio. Spend time mapping the space through drawing activities, making and sharing “food” at their dinner party installation, and engage with sound and video created by the group.
For the penultimate day of The Living Studio exhibition, Duchamp & Sons invite you to explore this live making space through various prompts chosen by the group.
Duchamp & Sons present a ‘Tourdio’ of the Gallery’s current headline exhibition, A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920-2020. This temporary audio guide will offer a relaxed, informal perspective into the thoughts and conversations had by Duchamp & Sons when thinking about studio spaces. Visitors will need to use their own devices and headphones to engage with the ‘Tourdio’.
Check out the highlights from our October 2021 Creative Careers Week - a week of events, workshops, and talks for 15-24s exploring futures in the creative sector.
MONDAY
Day 1 kicked off with ‘What are Creative Careers?’ workshop led by Curator: Youth Programmes Amelia Oakley, exploring the scope of creative roles - what we already know and what we want to know.
Next up we had a ‘Speed Meeting’ session with Whitechapel Gallery staff, where the group could chat to staff and find out more about their roles - guests included Director of Education and Public Programmes Richard, Development Events Manager Alice, Assistant Curator Ines, Head of HR & Inclusion Smitha, and more.
TUESDAY
Day 2 started with a talk from Whitechapel Gallery Director Iwona Blazwick about her career path and what is involved in the day to day running of a gallery.
In the afternoon, Assistant Curator, Wells led an Introduction to Curation workshop which explored the various elements of the curatorial process. We visited the Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon exhibition together, thinking in groups about the process of interpretation, installation and curation. To round off the day we spent time imagining and planning a brand new exhibition - thinking about who it’d be for, what it would involve, and why it’d be a relevant show now.
WEDNESDAY
Day 3 began with a session led by Curator: Community Programmes Siobhan, looking at what working in community programming involves. Together we focused in on a new community art project focused on Angel Alley, a street which neighbours the gallery - developing and presenting our own responses to the project brief, considering at all times the impact and legacy of the project on the local community.
The next session of the day involved working with Gemma, a freelance arts facilitator who specialises in supporting creatives in their career development. Through activities and writing exercises we worked on drawing out our own story as creatives, and thinking about how we can translate our skills and interests into CVs and application processes.
THURSDAY
The penultimate day of Creative Careers Week started with a session exploring working in Communications, led by Curator: Youth Programmes Amelia. We spent time thinking about the different avenues in ‘Communications’ before spending time in the Simone Fattal: Finding A Way exhibition experimenting with creating social media content for the @duchampandsons instagram.
Hudda Khaireh, member of Feminist artist collective, Thick/er Black Lines as well as an associate of Numbi Arts and OOMK Zine and a founding member of the Somali Museum, led the afternoon session which explored finding your way as an independent artist. Through sharing and free writing exercises, we thought about ways in which you can look after yourself and nourish yourself creatively as an artist.
FRIDAY
The final day of the Creative Careers Week was led by bare minimum collective – an interdisciplinary, anti-work group of artists. We focused on methods of working collectively, and imagining what our own creative futures and the creative futures of art spaces could look like. Together we visited the Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon exhibition, and then spent time in small groups imagining and planning a re-curated version of the show.
During the afternoon we focused in on artist manifestos - what they are and why we make them. We worked on creating our own manifestos outlining our practice, our values, and our promises to ourselves.
Whitechapel Gallery Youth Collective: Duchamp & Sons (2020)
Hear from members of Duchamp & Sons, Curator: Youth Programmes Renee Odjidja and artist Ayo Akingbade on two remarkable projects achieved during the pandemic,
How do you come to feel part of a community? Over six months, artist Ayo Akingbade collaborated with Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective Duchamp & Sons to explore ideas of place and belonging. Through workshops, screenings and fieldwork in the local area, they traced memories of displacement and the meaning of home, interrogating present challenges and future aspirations.
Echoing the uncertain times we live in, the new commission Fire In My Belly (2021) offers a compelling portrait of London through the voices of young people, as they navigate an uncharted road map of the city.
Artist Ayo Akingbade discusses her new film Fire In My Belly, co-developed with Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective, Duchamp & Sons. Echoing the precarious times we live in, this newly commissioned work offers a compelling take on questions of home, community and crisis in London.
Akingbade is in conversation with Curator Renee Odjidja, members of the collective and the Co-Founder/Director of Migrant’s Bureau Alisha Morenike Fisher.
Considering the ways in which lockdown has affected experiences of art and culture, Duchamp & Sons, presents a virtually curated display featuring artworks drawn from the Hiscox Collection.
What role might art play when our freedom is interrupted? What does it mean to curate from our laptops and screens? Can confinement trigger new creative processes and networks of solidarity?
In searching for ways to stay connected, the display explores ideas of home and asks what makes a community.
Artists featured in the exhibition include Richard Billingham, Edward Burtynsky, Gregory Crewdson, Peter Doig, Barbara Kaster, Agnieszka Kurant, Langlands and Bell, Lisa Oppenheim, Trevor Paglen and Cornelia Parker.
