The London art scene is suffering. Over the past 12 months the capital has lost Stephen Friedman, Beers, TJ Boulting and Sid Motion, independent art school Art Academy London and art and science hub the Science Gallery London. Gagosian is scaling back its presence in the city, and smaller independent and DIY venues are closing too. Explanations have varied—from the parlous state of the international art market to the effects of Brexit and a lack of funding—but whatever the cause, the decline of organizations like these affects London’s artists. Stephen Friedman brought through the likes of Yinka Shonibare and David Shrigley, and Art Academy London alumni include rising artists Lara Julien and Gemma Holzer. London’s reputation as a center of creative experimentation is built on operational support; artists need the space, patience and administrative assistance to do their jobs. Somerset House Studios, though, is standing strong. And this year marks the project’s 10th anniversary.
Constructed in the 18th Century in what is now central London, Somerset House has over time been an administrative base for the British Admiralty and the headquarters of the Inland Revenue, the U.K. government’s tax department. After the tax department moved out in the late 1990s, the grand building was converted into an arts center and, 16 years later, launched the Somerset House Studios complex, which provides workspaces and a public platform for up to 70 artists at a time. Marie McPartlin has been the director of Somerset House Studios since the project opened its doors, and her job is to oversee the Studios’ artistic and curatorial direction, cultural positioning and operative structure.
McPartlin argues that reversing London’s losses will require a fundamental rethinking of how arts funding is structured and distributed citywide. Photo: Anne Tetzlaff
“Our 10th year has provoked a lot of reflection,” she tells Observer. “We’re really thinking about where we can next have the most impact, which is taking us in two directions. We’re working much more internationally than we were five years ago, and we’re keen to expand that. We’re also thinking a lot about the potential of artist research for other sectors and industries, policy and the development of new technologies.” Three of the Studios’ artists will soon present their research to more than 1,000 policymakers at the Global Forum on the Ethics of A.I. The Studios’ interdisciplinary fellowship, n-Space, is producing ideas that will sit outside of existing arts structures. The current n-Space fellows recently staged a live court hearing with real trainee barristers, putting a fictional dual-use technology—civilian and military—on trial against real evidence, to test whether existing legal frameworks could hold a technological system to account. Featuring a roll call of Somerset House Studios artists, the anniversary celebrations include live performances, commissions and new installations that collide art with advanced technologies, along with the launch of 3ETV, a TV station hosted on Somerset House’s online video platform, Channel.
Somerset House
Address: Strand, London WC2R 1LA, United Kingdom
Contact: visitor@somersethouse.org.uk
Highlights: Home of the Courtauld Gallery, this cultural center hosts exhibitions, performances, live music commissions, artist salons, creative incubators and a studio residency program.
Projects like these help build on the Studios’ reputation for experimentation and inclusivity. What does Marie do to keep the experimental fires burning? “The Studios is based on the premise that artists should be supported in experimentation,” she says. “In the early days, the only way to get started was to go out, find people and ask them to come to Somerset House. You build trust over time by demonstrating the type of artists and work you want to support and, importantly, how you want to work. I don’t think we’ve done enough to support artists from lower socio-economic backgrounds joining the Studios, and that’s an important area of focus for us going forward.” Before leading Somerset House Studios, Marie held roles at London’s Barbican arts center, the Sydney Festival and British heritage charity the National Trust. “I’ve always been interested in ideas first and foremost, rather than the constraints of how an idea might be expressed. My own career has been very polymorphous in that regard, moving between music, performance, art, writing, without really knowing the canon for any of them. A professional imposter, it feels like sometimes. But being an expert or specialist comes with a lot of baggage. It can be really freeing to not know all the rules or history, how something should be done, and that’s what experimentation is in my mind, following the idea first, being open and curious about what form the expression might take.”
All the Studios’ artists commit to giving something back to their community and peers as part of their residency. “Mentoring, sharing a skill, acting as a critical friend. This is contractual and creates an environment of mutual support,” Marie explains. “Also, we’ve made our residencies really long term. Most are between five and seven years long. Some are 10. So artists are looking at having some stability for a decent chunk of their career, and most likely working with us on more than one idea or project over that time. In-progress work is welcome, and failure is part of the process. We create specific frameworks for artists to experiment within, where the audience is also primed to receive the experiment as just that. The phase we’re most interested in supporting is the bridge between what an artist makes in private and what they formally present in public, and how we support that bit in the middle.” New work emanating from the Studios includes a co-commission (with new NYC space Canyon) of a playable video game by Korean artist Ayoung Kim, fresh from her 2025 MoMA show and LG Guggenheim Award win, a collaboration between Studios artists Zein Majali (a former data analyst) and ex-ballet dancer Nina Davies, and a performance by Arkansas-born experimental pianist Precious Renee Tucker. Precious has an interest in exoplanetary weather systems, so the Somerset House Studios team has paired her with scientists from King’s College London to help realize her thoughts for the artwork.
Yet, outside the excellent work Somerset House Studios is doing, other London spaces continue to close. What does Marie think needs to happen to stop the capital from losing yet more creative communities? “This requires a major overhaul in thinking about arts funding and how it’s distributed. How the avant-garde, experimental and the underground feeds the mainstream has been a cornerstone of the Studios since the beginning,” she says. “London itself is now so expensive that many artists have left. There isn’t much operating at our scale here, and I wish there were, as I think our model does support the wider creative community in the city. Parts of it could be replicated by anyone with a large building and a shift in the traditional hierarchies of how these spaces operate.”
New work emerging from the Studios spans a co-commissioned video game, a fictional legal trial testing accountability for dual-use technology and a performance developed with exoplanetary scientists. © Anne Tetzlaff