Featuring installations, performances and online commissions, alongside the year-long cross-disciplinary programme.
Somerset House Studios has announced its 2025 programme including 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. Also included is news of n-Space, a new hub for interdisciplinary experimentation across art and technology at Somerset House Studios, launching in October 2025.
Highlights include:
Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream | Courtyard | 8th August – 14th 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. 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.
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’.
The Artists’ Fair 2025 | Somerset House New Wing | 7th & 8th 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.
International Residencies at the Studios
An expanded international residency programme includes American Artist(May), DeForrest Brown Jnr (March) and Ellen Arkbro (January).
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.
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.
BERNARD, Single line painter - b. 1987
Further Information: Somerset House Studios | Somerset House