RA Student Night: The Birthday Party
Saturday 8 December 2018 7 - 11.59pm
Burlington House and Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
Free, booking required. This event is for students and recent graduates.
We are hosting an epic birthday party to celebrate the RA’s 250th anniversary, curated by University of the Arts London students. Join us for DJ sets, performance art, pop-up exhibitions, film screenings and more.
This free, special event is a one-night festival curated by young creatives, for young creatives. We're inviting current students and recent graduates to explore the RA's two-acre site and encounter installation art, performances, DJs, immersive experiences and film screenings at this one-night-only carnival of art and music.
The RA's historic Burlington House, a 17th-century town palace on Piccadilly becomes a nostalgic and colourful art-filled playground, while the recently renovated Burlington Gardens, originally part of the University of London, plays host to an experimental programme of cutting-edge performances and experiences.
Selected highlights are listed below, with much more to be revealed...
Free, booking required. This event is for students and recent graduates.
Playground
The Birthday Party
The RA’s gilded Fine Rooms transformed into an eclectic birthday party complete with artist led party games, workshops, birthday cake and more. This multi-room experience takes inspiration from the RA’s history, Collection and Archive, and the desire to share this knowledge and new perspectives, as well as memories of games at childhood parties. Designed and produced by Helena Vannerley, Jennie Foot, Beatrice Morris and Gilly Hernandez.
2268 Ball
Unique line-up of time-bending DJs and performers. Expect anything and everything from acid house and disco, to baroque and ballet at this one night era-defying ball.
Slow Dance DJ takeover
7pm – Bianca Scout
7.40pm – 4K-Felix Raman, Max Bogotyrow, Kai-isa, Leo Kosuth
8.20pm – FEMME Collective
9pm – Jockstrap
9.40pm – Glows b2b Rothko Williams
10.20pm – PVA (live)
Art Direction by Ella Laurie
Visuals by Felix Bailey Higgins and Kit Whalley Payne
Finders Keepers
Explore an underground space to discover secret happenings, including:
Hidden archives
Experience a new soundscape, a sonic atmosphere created alongside oral histories from the RA archives. The space invites you to consider the relationship between human perspectives as conveyed through oral histories and the detached wonder and immensity of night-time star-gazing. Curated by Elvira Garcia and music producer, Glows.
Quick on the DRAW
Take part in a series of 30-second drawing challenge that embraces mistakes and busts creative inhibitions at this playful drop-in activity. Produced by Bill Redshaw.
Laboratory
An experimental programme of cutting-edge performances, sound art and experiences from emerging artists, current students and established practitioners including:
Museum Futures
Experience a multi-disciplinary exhibition produced by MA Information Experience Design students at the RCA that explores museums and galleries of the future. Created by Information Experience Design students at the RCA.
Ontology Studio
Visual Art and Design students at the BRIT School present new artworks at this pop-up exhibition that considers how ontology can inform future museums and curatorial approaches. Created by Visual Arts and Design students at the BRIT School.
UAL Film Festival
Showcase of new film-making talent from students across UAL, screened in the RA’s new Benjamin West Lecture Theatre.
In the Air 2018
Digital artwork exploring the movements of air and its relationship to time. The artist ‘paints in code’ to interactively programme pixels to recreate the timeless presence of air moving around us all, using technology to visualise the invisible. Created by Shirley Renwick.
Line of Sound
Showcasing boundary-pushing sound art and live DJs
7 - 9pm – TT record label takeover:
Bianca Scout (Live)
Lucaufer b2b Gribs
Iceboy Violet (Live)
9 -10.30pm – Space Afrika
Collections Gallery showcase
Site-responsive works by cutting edge performance groups which take place within the RA’s new Collections Gallery:
'Sonic Redux' by Dubmorphology
Live sound art inspired by the RA’s Collections Gallery, Dubmorphology present this new artwork incorporating gallery recordings and responsive music to create a collective sonic space, a layered tapestry of past and imagined futures.
'Eugene Waits' by Primordial Soup
Multi-disciplinary performance piece conceived and directed by Kimia Amini, produced in collaboration with Primeordial Soup Collective, and dancers from London School of Contemporary Dance and Trinity Laban. The performance explores the patterns of behaviour within a city, and the psychological evolution of the human mind.
'One day a threat, lionized another' by House of Decay
Site-responsive durational performance from House of Decay, exploring the perception of fertility in Renaissance art from a queer perspective, through a multi-disciplinary programme of contemporary dance, voguing, fashion and live art.
Food and drink
Food, cocktails and non-alcoholic options will be available to purchase across the site, including:
Christabel's
Libation Station
The Ginistry
Smith & Sinclair
Empress Market
Pop Dogs
Club Mexicana
Zoe's Ghana Kitchen
Peter Spanton (serving cocktails featuring Sytrkk, Wrecking Coast, Brentingby, Unclenearest)
About the UAL student curators
Helena Vannerley
Helena Vannerley is a self-proclaimed 'accidental art student' whose research-led work combines elements of graphics and traditional photographic techniques with a focus on creating pieces to share and explain.
Freddie Wise
Freddie Wise is a painting student at UAL from Stroud, Gloucestershire. Having finished his first year at Camberwell College of Art he has developed his interest in using found memories and thoughts to expose abstraction in figuration. His most recent work has involved swimming pools, pool tables and picnic blankets. Freddie's work uses the material qualities of paint to explore objects as symbols through form, creating scenes not out of place on a cinema screen.
Jessica Timbs
Jessica Timbs is currently studying Fine Art, having completed her Foundation Diploma at Camberwell College of Arts. She makes, records and writes about objects, exploring our relationships to material things.
Jennie Foot
Jennie Foot uses sound and moving image to construct installations that imply a narrative, as part of her Fine Art studies. Most of the themes within the works are derived from books or archival material that is re-contextualised in a gallery environment. More recently, she has been exploring public environments and liminal spaces, utilising this interest to create unsettling, evocative atmospheres.
Scott Castner
Scott Castner is an international student from the United States studying Performance: Design and Practice. Drawing from his background in theatre, Scott works primarily with the human voice and dance in order to investigate and challenge our modern understanding of identity. His performances ask audiences to address their discomforts by addressing his own discomforts. He also works as a Director for Theatre.
Elvira Garcia
Elvira Garcia studies Culture, Criticism and Curation and understands the curator's role as a bridge towards new narratives which enrich both artworks and audience. She aims to build accessible exhibitions and gatherings that arouse empathy and reflection.
Cameron Lee
Cameron Lee is directing and producing a feature film set between his hometown of Chorley and the remote Scottish island of Jura, starring Krautrock legend Damo Suzuki. 2018 has been his most artistically satisfying year to date.
Marco Pini
Marco Pini is a graphic and sound artist from LCC, his work focuses primarily on manipulating digital recordings and printing processes. His current work is released through his GG Skips monkier and focuses on inventing new visual languages and scores to create generatively designed soundscapes. He also runs the label and events collective Slow Dance and releases music under Glows.
Calvin Cho
Calvin Cho is currently in his second year studying Creative Direction in Fashion, he has completed an Advanced Diploma in Fashion Marketing and Management at Raffles College in Malaysia. During his academic pursuits, he has garnered skills in fashion branding, marketing, event planning and content curating.
Gilly Hernandez
Gilly Hernandez is a first year student studying Fashion Public Relations, she grew up in Trinidad then moved to New York at 18 where she lived for over 10 years before landing in London. After studying pattern cutting at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology and working as a commercial display designer then later raising a family; she decided to return to full time education. In her spare time she writes on events in and around London with a focus on fashion.
Oluwatobi Alexandra Falade
Oluwatobi Alexandra Falade is a painter who's practice includes mixed media such as collage, drawing, sculpture and photography to create works that draw on her Nigerian heritage and childhood in England. Her work is a merging and juxtaposition of these two cultures.
Beatrice Morris
Beatrice Morris uses set design to communicate a critique of society. Using a range of medium, her work ranges from miniature sets to full blown parades. Though bright and visually spectacular, her work will also be loaded with a deeper narrative. Concerned with atmosphere and the ability to evoke emotion, Beatrice creates both sets for screen, and interactive installation pieces, always exploring themes of identity, and the tension between past and future.
In partnership with
