Announcement of a major new commission by Studio’s artist and Turner Prize winner Tai Shani for the Somerset House Courtyard and online, alongside the year-long cross-disciplinary programme.
Highlights include:
- Studios resident Tai Shani presents a new Courtyard sculpture and 24/7 radio broadcast via Somerset House’s online platform, Channel
- New outdoor commission by Sophia Al-Maria and Lydia Ourahmane, developed in residence at Somerset House Studios
- The Artists’ Fair returns
- New Studios initiative n-Space launching in October 2025
- An expanded international residency programme includes American Artist, DeForrest Brown Jnr and Ellen Arkbro
Somerset House Studios has announced its 2025 programme, which features installations, performances and online commissions, including many of the Studios artists who have made groundbreaking contributions to art and the contemporary cultural landscape. It includes the largest outdoor work to date by Turner Prize winner and Studios artist Tai Shani, a return of the bi-annual series Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy, which examines the intersections of well-being and societal shifts, and a collaborative commission by artists Sophia Al-Maria and Lydia Ourahmane exploring cycles of power, debt and ownership.
Director of Somerset House Studios Marie McPartlin said:
“From interrogating England’s complex cultural narratives to the automation of sex and desire, our 2025 programme tackles the cutting-edge ideas and themes artists are working with today and reflects some of the exceptional cross-disciplinary work being conceived and made in the building.
2025 marks our first courtyard commission by a Studios artist with Tai Shani’s sculpture “The Spell or the Dream”. With an expanded international residency programme, we welcome to London some of the most boundary-pushing artists and thinkers working globally to develop new works, including American Artist who will present their first-ever UK commission with Somerset House Studios in October.
Rolling out across the Somerset House site and online via Channel, it’s our biggest programme yet and I hope to see audiences returning throughout the year.”
Today's announcement also includes news of n-Space, a new hub for interdisciplinary experimentation across art and technology at Somerset House Studios, launching in October 2025. Extending the Studio's artist-led, community-driven ethos, it will bring together practitioners from different fields to explore how we might generate new insights, interventions and knowledge in emerging sociotechnical systems, originating new programmes for the Studios.
- Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy | 28th January - 1st February | Lancaster Room | Talks: £8/£6, Saturday Performance: £10/£7.50, Saturday Day Ticket £15/£11.25 | Tickets here
- Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s digital commission, Grumpy, is available to watch online from Tuesday 28 January 2025 via Channel
Commissioned and produced by Somerset House Studios, Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy is a biannual series dedicated to examining the intersections of well-being and societal shifts, particularly in the face of technological and ecological change. It invites audiences to engage with history, lived experiences, and radical ideas to shape a healthier, more equitable future.
The centrepiece of this year’s edition of Hyper Functional is Grumpy, the new digital commission by Sidsel Meineche Hansen for Somerset House’s Channel. Grumpy is a declaration of unrequited love. The artwork combines melodic voice recordings, CGI animation, and ceroplastic—an eighteenth-century technique for casting anatomical wax models from dissected bodies. In the film, a chilling echo of the porn industry’s production of silicone bodies for automated use is conflated with the figure of the Anatomical Venus, who is cut open to eroticise the function of the reproductive and sexual organs.
Responding to the work, the live series at Somerset House Studios will investigate the ways in which virtual spaces have reshaped our experiences of sex and desire: through friendships and romantic relationships to eroticism and automation. With traditional boundaries of intimacy redefined, the digital space has become fertile ground for exploring new forms of emotional and physical connection. Through talks, screenings and performances, the programme explores the shifting landscapes where intimacy unfolds and evolves.
The series will include discussions and talks with writer Alex Quicho, actor/head of Four Chambers, Vex Ashley, and Professor Feona Attwood; artist Sophie Cundale, SWARM Collective, and author Helen Hester; artists Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Kate Cooper, and philosopher Johnny Golding. Screenings include A Cyborg Manifesto by Four Chambers, Virus Becoming by Shu Lea Cheung, FROM BEING LOST by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Infection Drivers by Kate Cooper. Performances will be presented by Sophie Cundale, Candela Capitan, Malik Nashad Sharpe, Black Venus in Furs, Jao, and a DJ set by Marissa Malik (Manuka Honey).
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Sophia Al-Maria and Lydia Ourahmane: 2125 | Lancaster Place | April onwards | FREE
Researched and developed in residence at Somerset House Studios, Sophia Al-Maria and Lydia Ourahmane’s Lancaster Place commission continues their collaborative exploration of the ‘grey areas’ of England’s narratives, focusing on the notion of the ‘right to remain’.
Somerset House is owned by the UK government but has been independently run by a trust for the last 25 years within the framework of a 125-year lease. On the site of a palace built by the Duke of Somerset as a grand private residence and symbol of his power and influence, it later became a home for several Queens of England, and a site for clandestine Catholic worship. The current building has housed admiralty, government administration, the tax offices and the Royal Societies. It is now a home for artists.
A quiet rebellion against the unforgiving urban design of central London, Al-Maria and Ourahmane will craft a series of benches from reclaimed Portland stone to mirror the fabric and texture of the building. Portland stone is the primary material used in the construction of Somerset House and a symbol of London’s architectural heritage. More than just a place of rest and refuge, the benches will be designed by the artists to challenge the historical narratives connected to the origins of the reclaimed stone and the new environment they will inhabit.
The title of the work refers to the ending of the current Somerset House lease, a date that will surpass the lifetimes of the artists, the inhabitants and the decision-makers of Somerset House. Positioned facing the entrance to the building, the benches are an invitation to dwell, to remain and to take up space without permission. In contemplating the physical and fictional cycles of power, debt and ownership that have been embodied by the building and others like it over time, the piece questions who has the right to occupy, for how long, and under what terms & conditions.
2125 Programme: G31 | 24 April - 13 July
From April to July 2025, the artists will invite six individual practitioners from diverse disciplines to take up two-week residencies each in the G31 project space at Somerset House, in dialogue with the site-specific installation outside. These residencies will encourage reflection and bold exploration of themes such as resilience, refuge, rest and the unspoken politics of public space, through conversations and creative actions that provoke critical engagement. The evolving project space will be open to visitors, challenging the boundaries between institution, artist, and audience, and creating opportunities for unexpected encounters and transformative dialogue.
Curated by Marie McPartlin and Marina Doritis.
Akinola Davies: rituals: union black | Courtyard / Summer Series | 20 July
Featuring as part of the Summer Series and in celebration of Somerset House at 25, BAFTA-nominated filmmaker and Somerset House Studios resident Akinola Davies Jr will premiere a new film, featuring a specially commissioned score performed live by an incredible lineup of contemporary musical talent. Made with support from BBC Film, the film documents the everyday rituals that underscore rhythms of Black life in the UK, paying tribute to the collective resonances of the Black British communities.
Akinola Davies’ commission and live performance is supported by GRoW @ Annenberg.
Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream | Courtyard | 8 August – 14 September | FREE
The Spell Or The Dream is a major new work by Turner Prize winner and Somerset House Studios artist Tai Shani, drawing together sculpture, radio, live gatherings and a host of guest contributors, to collectively dream of new horizons.
Drawing on the archetypal fairytale image of a sleeping figure in a glass box and devised for the iconic Somerset House courtyard, the sculpture - The Dreamer - invokes myths of cursed or enchanted sleeps that last a hundred years, a millennia, an eternity; poisoned apples and pricked fingers that lead to suspended states of animation.
Dreaming ways out of crisis and into fairer futures is an act of the imagination in our current reality, not only a radical act, but an urgent one. Of what does the Dreamer dream? Responding to the question, a continuous broadcast will host a programme of discussions, readings, sound works, and newly commissioned performances, which respond to these themes, and play and appropriate the multitude of forms, tropes and purposes that make up the rich history and landscape of radio. The broadcast will be available via Channel.
Featuring contributions from artists, writers, thinkers, economists, ecologists and academics from around the globe, including many Somerset House Studios artists, The Spell or The Dream is an invitation to understand the necessity of imagining new and hopeful ways of being and building together.
Artist Tai Shani said:
“To have the opportunity to make work in such a striking, historic venue like Somerset House and to then present it in the courtyard, is a huge privilege. I’m really looking forward to exploring and weaving together various histories, pop cultural mythologies and politics. The theme of this work is based on our surroundings and how as a society we are seemingly under an 'unbreakable spell or curse' of capitalism - sleeping our way through present and future catastrophes. I want this work to inspire makers, creators and innovators, as well as being a place full of hope for the future.”
Curated by Marie McPartlin and Rahila Haque.
The Artists’ Fair 2025 | Somerset House New Wing | 7 & 8 June | Pay What You Can
The Artists’ Fair returns for its third edition in June. Initiated by the Studios community, the fair includes an artist-led market, with artists keeping full proceeds from sales. The Fair also acts as a celebration of the artist community based at the Studios, and supports networks that exist between artists, peers and allies. A discursive programme of talks and workshops accompanies the fair, addressing the topics and themes that feel most urgent to artists today. Full programme to be announced in Spring.
New Studios Initiative
n-Space
n-Space is Somerset House Studios new hub for interdisciplinary experimentation across art and technology. Extending the Studio's artist-led, community-driven ethos, it will bring together practitioners from different fields to explore how we might generate new insights, interventions and knowledge in emerging sociotechnical systems, originating new programmes for the Studios.
An initial three-year pilot programme of fellowships will launch in October with the support of the Rothschild Foundation, and in partnership with UAL’s Creative Computing Institute and Goldsmiths Computing.
International Residencies at the Studios
Ellen Arkbro (January)
In January, composer, sound artist and musician Ellen Arkbro joined the artist community at Somerset House Studios for a three-month residency supporting the development of a new work commissioned in collaboration with Goethe-Institut London and CTM Festival. The international residency continues an annual partnership programme supporting Germany-based female or non-binary artists working at the intersection of music, art and technology.
Exploring precision-tuned intervallic harmony, Arkbro’s work includes compositions for acoustic instruments, synthetic sound and for combinations of both, as well as installation. Her practice focuses on the qualities of harmonic sound that reveal listening as an active process of creative participation, inviting the listener to gradually transform into the sound itself. The residency will see Ellen develop a new work to be presented at Somerset House Studios’ Assembly, a bi-annual series of experimental music and performance, and CTM Festival in 2026.
DeForrest Brown, Jr. (March)
Writer, musician, theorist, and curator DeForrest Brown, Jr. joins the Somerset House Studios community for a one-month international residency in March 2024.
With access to studio space, internal community programme, technical and curatorial support across the month, DeForrest will use the residency period to focus on the research and development of a forthcoming book, album, lecture series, and audiovisual performance - the new live work to be premiered at Assembly, Somerset House Studios’ biannual experimental sound, music, and performance series, in March 2026. Explorations taking form under the title Rhythmanalytics, DeForrest’s multi-faceted project explores the intersections of written and musical practice.
American Artist (May)
AMERICAN ARTIST makes thought experiments that mine the history of technology, race, and knowledge production, beginning with their legal name change in 2013. Their artwork primarily takes the form of sculpture, software, and video. They have previosuly exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, and Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul. Artist is a former co-director of the School for Poetic Computation and a faculty at Yale University.
Throughout May, American Artist will be developing a new commission for platform Channel, their first ever commission in the UK, launching online in October 2025.
New Artists Joining the Community
Nina Davies
Canadian British artist who considers the present moment through observing dance in popular culture and how it is disseminated, circulated, made, and consumed. Working primarily with video and performance, Davies considers current dance phenomena in relation to the wider socio-technical environments from which they emerge. Previous research projects have included the recent commodification of the dancing body on digital platforms and rethinking dances of today as traditional dances of the future. Oscillating between fiction and non-fiction, her work helps build new critical frameworks for engaging with dance practices.
Davies graduated in 2022 from Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art where she was awarded the Almacantar Studio Award and the Goldsmiths Junior Fellowship position. Her first solo institutional show was Precursing at Matts Gallery, London in 2023. Her work has been exhibited at The Photographers Gallery, Overmorrow House, Battle, New Contemporaries 2023 at Camden Arts Centre and Gextophoto, Spain.
Gray Wielebinski
Dallas-born artist whose practice is interested in the role that power plays in historical and contemporary forms of myth-making and narratives and how this intrinsic power dynamic affects how we conceive of ourselves, others, and the world around us. Gray works in a variety of mediums, incorporating video, performance, collage, installation, sculpture, conceptual research and more. The process of collaging runs through their practice in many forms – reconfiguring and transforming iconography and visual codes that interrogate dominant frameworks and belief systems and propose alternatives. They are also continuously attentive to the fraught status of American and UK self-mythology and landscape, and recent work has focused on surveillance, strategy, and secrecy, particularly as these intersect with questions of gender, sexuality, and the social.
BERNARD
Single line painter - b. 1987
Channel: Digital Commissions 2025
Sidsel Meineche Hansen: Grumpy | 28 January
A digital artwork which deals with the relationships between automation and arousal, desire and denial. A declaration of unrequited love via melodic voice recordings, CGI animation and ceroplastic - the eighteenth-century practice of producing anatomical waxes from dissected bodies. The Anatomical Venus is the slashed wax star of the film, with her sexual organs on show visualising their functionality the artist draws parallels with the porn industry’s production of silicone bodies for automated sexual use.
Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream Radio | 8 August - 14 September
An extension of their courtyard installation The Spell or the Dream, a continuous radio broadcast will invite a host of guest contributors from around the world, to explore the theme of dreaming of a better future, through discussions, readings and newly commissioned soundworks.
American Artist: New Commission | October 2025
Following their show Shaper of God at Pioneer Works, NYC, American Artist presents their first ever UK commission, developed in residence at Somerset House Studios.
Somerset House Studios Touring
Dis Fig - 25 January - CTM Festival, silent green Betonhalle
Berlin-based producer and performer Felicia Chen, also known as Dis Fig, presents a live performance for CTM Festival, a body of work developed during a three-month residency at Somerset House Studios with the support of the Goethe-Institut London.
First presented at Somerset House Studios’ Assembly in March 2024, the performance will see Dis Fig collaborate with Nihiloxica’s Spooky-J on drums, leaning on new processes utilising self-made electro-acoustic instruments and improvisational channelling. The material will form the basis of an upcoming full-length release.
Imran Perretta: A Riot in Three Acts
HOME, Manchester | 21 February - 8 June | Free with ticketed events
Following its premiere at Somerset House Studios last autumn, A Riot In Three Acts travels to HOME, Manchester. A large-scale installation using the tropes and techniques of cinema, in the form of an expansive film set and cinematic score, the installation considers riots and civil uprisings that have occurred in response to systemic injustice experienced by marginalised communities. Evolving from Perretta’s experience as a young person during the UK riots in 2011, the work explores the narratives of our urban spaces, and the social inequality and racial violence that shape them.
A Riot in Three Acts (2024) was originally commissioned by and developed in residence at Somerset House Studios. The score, A Requiem for the Dispossessed (2024), is co-commissioned by Somerset House Studios and the Manchester Camerata, by arrangement with NEWFORM MUSIC.
ABOUT SOMERSET HOUSE STUDIOS
Somerset House Studios is an experimental workspace in the centre of London connecting artists, makers and thinkers with audiences. Located inside the repurposed former Inland Revenue building, the Studios offer space and support to artists pushing bold ideas, engaging with urgent issues and pioneering new technologies. It is also a platform for the development of new creative projects and collaborations. Up to 70 artists are resident at any one time and are supported to develop their practice for a defined period.
About Somerset House and Channel
Step Inside, Think Outside
As the home of cultural innovators, Somerset House is a site of origination, with a cultural programme offering alternative perspectives on the biggest issues of our time. In 2025, Somerset House celebrates its 25th birthday, marking its extraordinary transformation to one of London’s best-loved cultural spaces and home to one of the largest creative communities in the UK. We are a place of joy and discovery, where everyone is invited to Step Inside and Think Outside
From our historic site in the heart of London, we work globally across art, creativity, business, and non-profit, nurturing new talent, methods and technologies. Our resident community of creative enterprises, arts organisations, artists and makers, makes us a centre of ideas, with most of our programme home-grown.
We sit at the meeting point of artistic and social innovation, bringing worlds and minds together to create surprising and often magical results. Our spirit of constant curiosity and counter perspective is integral to our history and key to our future.
Drawing from Somerset House’s unique resident community, the digital platform will showcase a rolling programme of exclusive commissions, documentaries, films, podcasts, talks, interactive works and editorial content. Channel’s content has been created with accessibility in mind and will provide alternative ways of presenting information such as subtitles and transcripts.
*Channel has been developed with support from the UK Government’s Culture Recovery Fund through Arts Council England.
For more information, please contact Isis O’Regan - isis@tsf-pr.com or Lily Stones lily@tsf-pr.com
For general Somerset House queries, please contact press@somersethouse.org.uk