Costume designs showcased at Somerset House

The work of students from London Met’s National Art and Design club featured in an exhibition at Somerset House.

Date: 30 June 2016

A group of young students who attend London Met’s National Art and Design Saturday club had their work exhibited at Somerset House earlier this month.

The exhibition ran from 22-26 June. Headdresses and wire sculptures made by the club in conjunction with Ian Teague and Simone ten Hompel from The Cass were on display.

The headdresses were made as part of a special collaboration with the English National Opera’s education programme, ENO Baylis. Club members worked with Ian Teague and ENO designer Ruth Paton over twelve weeks to create the headdresses for a large-scale community performance, Millions of Years, created in response to the ENO’s production of the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten and performed in the Great Court at the British Museum on 6 March. 

A landscape of wire sculptures, partly inspired by text from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, made with Cass lecturer Simone ten Hompel, is also on display.

The exhibition also features work from over 40 other clubs from across the country who are part of the programme.

“The Saturday Club gives students access to specialist facilities and professionals that they would not have access to in a normal school environment. The whole point of the club is to allow the members a chance to develop and achieve their aspirations while learning new skills.” says Widening Participation Manager, Liz Routhorn from London Met.

“It helps them to visualise how art and design can be part of their future education and career.”

The National Art & Design Saturday Club, run and funded by the Sorrell Foundation, offers young people aged 14–16 the unique opportunity to study art and design every Saturday morning at their local college or university for free.

London Met’s Saturday Club, now in its second year, is run as a joint project by the Outreach, Events and Widening Participation Team and the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design.

You can find out more about London Met’s Saturday club here.