CUTE Upgrade Yourself Takeover

This CUTE takeover is led by Upgrade Yourself, Somerset House's creative skills programme aimed at deepening and widening engagement. The programme of events and opportunities looks to remove barriers and increase representation in the cultural sector, with a focus on young aspiring and emerging creative talent.

Your free ticket to the CUTE takeover gives you access to:

After-hours entry to CUTE, an exhibition that explores the irresistible force of cuteness in contemporary culture.
The chance to get creative in a crafts-based workshop with Catherine Morton-Abuah that will give attendees the opportunity to express themselves, have fun and leave with a customised accessory that compliments their style.
A playful talk from Nick Murray on how game design can be used in unexpected ways to tell stories and create new worlds in art, writing and film.
A performance and talk from Sian Fan about her creative practice and the tools she uses to build her work. In her performance she will bring to life her interactive installation in the exhibition with an improvisation flow in dialogue.
The Upgrade Yourself Social – with a medley of perfectly curated tunes from AS3A, providing the soundtrack for the evening.

The event will take place across three unique connected spaces at Somerset House – Embankment Galleries, the Screening Room and the Great Arch Hall.

Programme

18.30-22.00 - Charming Workshop with Catherine Morton-Abuah
18.30-22.30 - Free entry to CUTE
19.00-19.30 - A talk with Sian Fan
20.00-21.00 - A talk with Nick Murray
20.00-20.20 / 20.30-20.50 - Performance by Sian Fan
20.30-21.00 / 21.30-22.00 - Meet Hello Kitty collector, Amy-Louise Allen

Charming Workshop with Catherine Morton-Abuah
Great Arch Hall

Charming is a crafts-based workshop and will act as the Cute takeovers ‘decoration station’. Attendees will have the opportunity to customize and create their own accessories. There will be a broad range of materials on offer, such as stickers, polymer clay charms in shapes like stars and hearts, and beads of all shapes, letters and sizes. Outcomes would include phone charm straps, bracelets, necklaces, earrings or rings, but participants are also welcome to decorate pre-existing items, such as their phone cases with stickers and charms.

Artist talk with Sian Fan
Screening Room

Sian Fan, participating artist in CUTE, will discuss her creative practice, sharing a few key examples of her work, the tools she uses and her career path from school to now.

Sian Fan is an interdisciplinary artist currently based at Somerset House Studios. She has exhibited internationally with venues including Tate Modern, British Council, and the V&A, as well as producing work with Channel 4, the BBC and Facebook.

Her work combines movement, the body and technology to embodiment, identity, and human experience in the digital age. She is particularly interested in the uneasy synchronicities between Asian and cyborgian bodies; in popularised depictions of Asiatic bodies in anime and video games; and in the thresholds of human identity where one exists as both and neither at the same time.

Artist talk with Nick Murray
Screening Room

Nick Murray is a producer, composer and artist making interactive sonic and narrative work focusing on loss and digital cultures. This often takes the form of games, interactive poetry and performance. Nick is lead producer for Now Play This at Somerset House, director of Playing Poetry and associate producer with Penned in the Margins.

Join Nick for a playful talk on how game design can be used in unexpected ways to tell stories and create new worlds in art, writing and film.

Performance by Sian Fan
Embankment Galleries

Taking place in her exhibition space, this performance will be a 10-minute-long improvisational flow in dialogue with Sian’s interactive installation, Glimmer. She will embody the archetypal anime-esque ‘magical girl’, exploring various choreographic motifs found within anime transformation sequences and in doing so activating the artworks digital effects, triggering the transformation of the virtual image.

Please note the performances are repeated and will take place in the exhibition where space is limited. Entry will be on a first come, first served basis.

Meet with Hello Kitty collector Amy-Louise Allen
Embankment Galleries

Amy-Louise has collected Hello Kitty items since the age of 11, when she locked eyes with Hello Kitty she was enamoured! An ex-fashion graduate with a penchant for 'Kawaii' and 'Guro-Kawaii', she has gone on to collect over 30,000 items, ranging from Steiff Teddy Bears to unused SPAM crossovers to Hello Kitty shaped contacts lenses. She has travelled across the globe, including to the Hello Kitty theme parks in Japan and Malaysia, in search for limited edition merch. With Hello Kitty globalisation in full effect Amy-Louise's collection doesn't show any signs of slowing down!

Meet and chat with Amy-Louise about her wonderful collection and to learn more about Hello Kitty

Find out more about CUTE

A major new exhibition exploring the irresistible force of cuteness in contemporary culture.