SOIL & Salt Cosmologies Upgrade Yourself Takeover

Responding to the recently renovated Salt Stair which opens to the public for the first time, the last of our architectural stairs to be refurbished at Somerset House. Upgrade Yourself is taking over SOIL and Salt Cosmologies for one night only.

Join us for a FREE late event for 18-30-year-olds, where aspiring creatives will explore the themes of the SOIL and Salt Cosmologies exhibitions. Your ticket gives you exclusive after-hours access to both exhibitions, plus a jam-packed programme of workshops, talks and tours! Delve into vital topics including heritage, bio-design, sustainability, ecology, and holistic practices through a variety of multi-disciplinary activities.

Take part in workshops, talks, tours, and live musical performances which draw from artistic techniques such as bio-design, natural dyeing and block printing. This event foregrounds topics surrounding land practices, displacement, and environmental justice. This is a great opportunity to connect, learn, and discover new perspectives in a welcoming and inspiring environment! Throughout the event, there will be a live DJ, bar, food and networking in Seamen’s Hall. We'll be offering complimentary drinks from Karma Drinks, proudly certified organic by the Soil Association, along with free food from Café Petiole, a café that specialises in mostly vegan dishes!

The Programme

Please note that entry for workshops and talks will be on a first-come, first served basis. Capacity is limited. Information on how to sign up will be sent in the pre-event email.

Salt Cosmologies

18.00 - 21.30 | Great Arch Hall

Block Printing with Neera Sehgal

Join printmaker Neera Sehgal for a hands-on workshop exploring the traditional art of hand-block printing on cotton fabric. Learn about the history of this centuries-old craft while printing unique designs inspired by the themes of the 'Salt Cosmologies' exhibition, with a focus on the living hedge and 'Customs Line'.
Using hand-carved botanical woodblocks and water-based acrylic inks, you'll create your own fabric masterpiece to take home. All materials provided—just wear something you don’t mind getting inky!

18.15 & 19.15 | Terrace Room 1

Introduction to Natural Dyes with Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck

Inspired by the permaculture principles of re-use and zero waste, join artist Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck to learn the basics of natural dyes and reveal a palette of colours from plant-based kitchen waste, such as onion and garlic skins, tea, carrot peel and avocado pits.
This workshop is directly inspired by the method Johanna employs in her series of collaborative installations, ‘Penser, Manger, Partager’ (‘To Think, To Eat’ To Share’, 2015 – Present) using salt as a mordant. No prior experience is required, and all materials will be provided.

18.30. 19.30 & 20.30 | Terrace Room 3

The Salty and the Sweet: A Sensory History of Taste, Displacements and Migrations with Lily Tekseng

Salt and sugar look the same, but do they also dissolve in the mouth of history as bitter and sour? This talk will trace the histories of the two vital and seemingly ubiquitous commodities, and their planetary entanglement in the trajectories of modern empire. Drawing from narratives of enslaved peoples to literary narratives of indentured labourers, this talk will excavate the sweet, salty and sour histories of sugar and salt.

19.00 & 21.00 | Stamp Stair

Synth and Dilruba ballads from the Indian subcontinent

Join musicians Jatinder Singh Durhailay & Suren Seneviratne for a rare performance of hybrid project Petit Oiseau which merges the ancient Indian dilruba instrument with the modern electronic synthesiser into a harmonious and meditative soundscape.

SOIL

18.00 - 21.30 | Great Arch Hall

Call to Action: Inspiring Real-World Impact

The "Call to Action" section of the SOIL exhibition showcases organisations like Youngwilders, Athene Club, Cody Dock and Transition Town London Hub who are actively driving sustainability and community initiatives. This space empowers attendees to turn insights from the event into meaningful actions, fostering lasting change for a sustainable future.

18.15, 19.30 & 20.45 | Terrace Room 2

Mycelium Meditation: Painting the Hidden Webs of the Forest with Maymana

In this meditative, creative workshop with artist Maymana Arefin (@fungi.futures), immerse yourself in the fascinating world of fungi and the lessons they can teach us about mutual aid and collective care. Through guided mindfulness and painting, you’ll explore the interconnectedness of life, just like the mycelium networks beneath the forest floor.

18.15, 19.00, 20.15 & 21.00 | SOIL Kitchen, Embankment Galleries

Cultural Food Project with Earth Tenders

Join Earth Tenders for an engaging workshop exploring personal food stories and histories through an anti-colonial lens. In this drop-in session, participants will learn about the origins of food and reflect on its cultural significance. The workshop offers space for journaling, group discussions and creative activities, including making your own seed packets. Whether you're curious about food sovereignty or seeking deeper connections to what you eat, this session invites meaningful reflection and connection to soil and the land.

19.30 - 20.30 | Screening Room

Innovative Futures: Exploring Tech, Textiles, and Bio-Design through Collaboration

Hosted by Niyanta Sharma, join designers and Makerversity members, Cassie Quinn and Antoinette Oni for an exciting conversation on the intersection of tech, textiles, and bio-design. They’ll explore the role of craftsmanship and trade, how textile work connects with other creative industries, and the power of cross-collaboration in improving ecosystems. Together, they’ll discuss their groundbreaking work in regenerative materials and how innovation can reshape industries and drive sustainability.

Meet the artists & organisations

Neera Sehgal

Neera Sehgal is a West London artist and printmaker. Her work with Indian woodblocks on handmade paper, draws on her connection to her heritage and culture.

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck’s (b.1990, France, lives and works in Oxfordshire) transdisciplinary practice is rooted in ecological awareness, engaging with painting, sculpture, horticulture, and participatory projects. Her works express care and tenderness, reflecting on the fragility and beauty of life. Recent solo exhibitions include Dreaming About Tomorrow, Nidi Gallery, Tokyo (2022). Group shows include One Foot in The Sky, Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, UK (2023), Edge Effects, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2024), The Equal Right to Live and Blossom, Kate MacGarry, London (2024). She is also founder of the collaborative deep-ecology-informed initiative Poetic Pastel Press and The Gardening Drawing Club. Three of her paintings are on view in SOIL at Somerset House.

Lily Tekseng

Lily Tekseng is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK, working in the field of Postcolonial and Global Anglophone Literary studies. Her research focuses on the memories and narratives of the Second World War in the erstwhile ‘China-Burma-India’ theatre of war with a view to locate and analyse the stresses, omissions and compulsions therein. Her areas of interest include planetary histories of the British empire, production of modern borderlands, archival studies and the history of photojournalism. She instructs as an Undergraduate Supervisor at the University of Cambridge and has previously taught at the University of Delhi, India.

Petit Oiseau

Indian Classical player Jatinder Singh Durhailay's graceful mastery of the three-hundred-year-old dilruba breaks new ground in contemporary music with the aid of Suren Seneviratne's ambient synthesiser etudes performed on a EMU Command Station. Custom sound-patches dance in curious rhythms alongside Singh's deeply evocative sitar-like wails that hark back to the North India of centuries ago.

Youngwilders

Youngwilders is a non-profit doing youth-led nature recovery work in the UK. Our dual aim is (1) to accelerate the nature recovery of the UK (2) to centre young people in the process and the movement. To achieve this we run diverse ecological restoration projects nationwide, all designed, implemented, and maintained by local young people. Alongside this, we host events, programs, and creative projects to engage our generation and build capacity as environmental stewards.

Athene Club

Athene Club is a multi-faceted space and community group connecting women with the outdoors. Whether through hikes, running, meditation, or educational workshops, the collective are the grassroots of a growing sisterhood with a passion for exploring the active potential of nature within our communities and beyond. Founded in 2021 by photographers Zaineb Abelque and Olivia Jankowska, the group emerged from their shared adventurous spirit, creative bond, and a mutual recognition of the lack of safe, inclusive spaces for women to connect and hang out in London. Through their friendship and vision, they built a community focused on cultivating meaningful connections and encouraging women to embrace and explore the outdoors.

Cody Dock

Cody Dock is a centre for arts, heritage, and ecology in Newham. We are a charity and community hub located on the river Lea working to build and restore connection to the local environment through creative workshops, events and exhibitions.

Transition Town London Hub

Transition London Hub’s vision is to invite Transitioners in London together to share, support and celebrate their work transitioning local communities towards an environmentally, socially and economically just future. Transition Towns are all about hope with your sleeves rolled up! Come hear all about what groups get up to and how that might inspire you into action.

Maymana Arefin

Maymana Arefin is a community organiser, artist and writer in London. In 2020, Maymana founded @fungi.futures, a space to map radical alternative futures guided by her joy and passion for fungi. Through leading nature immersions, plant and fungi walks, her work focuses on deep rest and healing and restoring our communion with our non-human kin. Maymana’s award-winning research on how the mycelium networks of fungi may be used as a metaphor for mutual aid seeks to re-imagine an unjust world through a politics of hope.

Earth Tenders

Earth Tenders is a black-led nature connection and community gardening project based in South London. We are responding to the collective call for BPOC-led and affirming spaces within earth practices. At the growing site we offer free or offer workshops and training in food growing, medicine making, nature walks, crafts and wellbeing practices.

Cassie Quinn

Cassie Quinn is the founder of CQ Studio, an award-winning regenerative design lab and a PhD Candidate in regenerative systems cleaning textile wastewater using algae at Central Saint Martin’s Living System Lab which is sponsored by Monsoon/Accessorize. She is a graduate of the Master’s in Biodesign from CSM and combines traditional fashion and textile skills with cutting-edge biomaterial research. CQ Studio conducts R&D of regenerative, local textiles and utilises waste to create new materials and systems of production including using mushrooms to clean wastewater to make plastic-free bio-embellishments (this is currently patent-pending). She creates bespoke designs, regenerative artwork using the materials and processes developed in-house. She uses various techniques from hand-embroidery, design for disassembly, regenerative design and plant pigment extraction to create her work. Her work has been presented at exhibitions and showcases including Wallpaper* Magazine, Vogue Business Future Fabrics Expo and has been commissioned by Veuve Clicquot, Dead Rabbit NYC, HRH King Charles and by LVMH for the IUCN World Congress.

Alongside the research of innovative materials, she delivers workshops as part of the Sustainable Fashion Factory series for organisations such as Soho House, Victoria and Albert Museum and Prince’s Trust. She has also been awarded accolades for her work including the EU Commission Worth II Partnership Project, Arts Council DYCP, Mayor’s Entrepreneur Awards for Creative Industries and support from Innovate UK

Antoinette Vandy Oni

Antoinette Vandy Oni is the CEO of AGREKA Build, a company revolutionising the construction industry by transforming agricultural crop waste into sustainable building materials. Based at Makerversity, Antoinette leads the development of WHEATEX, an innovative insulation material that embodies circular economy principles and aims to decarbonise the built environment.

With over a decade of experience in architecture, regenerative design, and design-led research, Antoinette has worked with global organisations on sustainability and urban development projects. She contributed to Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy’s sustainability strategy in the Champagne region, consulted with The Crown Estate on city development in Cambridge, and advised the German Senate on high-density, mixed-use developments.

Antoinette’s commitment to community-led regenerative design has seen her commissioned by E.On energy company, the Goethe-Institut Nigeria, and The Africa Centre in London. She has delivered impactful projects through films, installations, and workshops across cities such as London, Lagos, Kano and Berlin. 

Her work has earned her notable recognition, including the LVMH MaisonZero Award for ‘Regenerative Luxury,’ the MullenLowe Group Award for ‘Fresh Creative Talent,’ and a commendation from Lord Norman Foster for the RIBA Travelling Prize.

Through AGREKA BUILD, Antoinette combines her expertise in design, sustainability, and innovation to create transformative solutions for a net-zero future.

Niyanta Sharma

Niyanta is a multidisciplinary artist and architectural designer whose work centres around connection and community. Through her integration of architecture with gastronomy, Niyanta highlights the body as a dynamic feature of physical spaces, using the temporality of food to reimagine architecture’s static nature. Niyanta is a co-founder of Playte alongside Wesley Hauler, in which local foods are used as a material to create edible sculptures that bring together the surrounding and people. Together they explore the joy of gastronomy.

The Salt Stair restoration and associated programming has been made possible with the National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery players.

About Upgrade Yourself
Upgrade Yourself is Somerset House's creative skills programme aimed at deepening and widening engagement. Managed by the Inclusive Talent Engagement team, the Upgrade Yourself programme exists to break down barriers and build confidence for underrepresented, aspiring creatives aged 16-30.

Using the creative community at Somerset House and beyond as a resource, our programmes provide emerging talent access to skills, experiences and progression routes to pursue careers in the creative sector.

Accessibility
Our ambition is to make this event accessible to everyone, but we know there is work to do!

The Upgrade Yourself Takeover will take place in Great Arch Hall, Embankment Galleries, Seamen's Hall, Screening Room, Courtyard Rooms and Terrace Rooms at Somerset House (South Wing). The spaces are accessible to wheelchair users and there is an accessible toilet close by.

There will also be a quiet space, a prayer room and access packs available.

If you would like more information or to request specific access support, please email engagement@somersethouse.org.uk prior to arriving.

We are constantly working towards making our events more accessible, if you have any feedback on how we can improve. Please let us know!

Find out more about accessibility at Somerset House here.

ACCESS PACKS
For the Takeover, you'll be able to borrow Access Packs from the Visitor Experience team, these will be available at the SOIL exhibition entrance. These will contain large print guides, noise cancelling headphones and a stress ball