Mosaic Rooms (MR)

Introduction

This reporting period saw The Mosaic Rooms 10th anniversary programme which launched in April 2018. The programme is made up of six exhibitions split into two alternating strands: a series focused on seminal Arab and Iranian modernist artists from Egypt, Morocco and Iran curated by Morad Montazami and a series of group shows presenting contemporary art from these three countries organised in partnership with regional institutions and curators. This includes Townhouse, Cairo; Azar Mahmoudian, Tehran and Kulte Gallery, Rabat.

The programme provided the opportunity to create new networks and partnerships. It is the first time an exhibition programme has been externally curated for a duration, and also the first presentation of high profile modernist artists including those from Iran, extending our remit and reach to see what audience reaction and interest is. This highly ambitious programme has resulted in the best attendance year we have had to date, with a 12% audience increase onsite.

Reiber + Partners delivered the press campaign for the programme, securing coverage in the Financial Times, Frieze, the Art Newspaper, Art Asia Pacific and more.

We scheduled a series of weekly multidisciplinary events to accompany each exhibition. The offer ranged from current affairs panels, to film screenings, performances, artist talks and more. Attendance has remained consistent throughout the year and we will continue with this format in the foming year. The period also saw the 2018 annual Edward W Said London Lecture take place. 2018’s speaker was Amira Hass and the event was a sell-out, demonstrating how the lecture is now firmly established in the cultural calendar.

Income generation from bookshop sales has not been as forecast, and it has not been appropriate to hire the space due to the extensive and ambitious installations, and extremely valuable works of art on display. The café is also difficult to operate due to its location and a member of staff not being able to be there so this has to be reviewed for 2019 along with venue hire.

Successful approaches to four individuals to help support Morad Montazami’s three exhibition series, secured £14,000. We were also successful in obtaining an Arts Council grant of £47,751 towards the programme from July 2018-Sept 2019. This is our largest public grant to date and we hope it will mark the beginning of a stronger relationship with ACE. A further £5,000 was raised from individuals towards the Townhouse exhibition, £5,000 from Saadi Soudavar Foundation towards the Behjat Sadr exhibition, and £5,000 from the local borough in particular for the education programme.

Alongside questionnaires we ran an audience consultation which focused on communications. The consultation took place with a group of visitors and a group of non-visitors. They reviewed web, newsletter and social media communications. The Instagram account was seen as a positive example of rich imagery representing The Mosaic Rooms. The consultation concluded that visual impact is key, information needs to be conveyed concisely and images need to represent people’s experiences of The Mosaic Rooms. The website was seen as functional but failing to inspire and communicate the experience a visit to The Mosaic Rooms can offer and will be reviewed moving forward.

During the reporting period we launched Family Fun, a monthly programme of family focused workshops programmed by artist Dia Batal aiming to engage children and their families from Arab and non-Arab backgrounds to enjoy The Mosaic Rooms and learn about Arab culture. We also piloted two youth projects during the summer and a schools workshop project with two local secondary schools during the autumn.

The Mosaic Rooms celebrated its anniversary on 1st November with an evening reception attended by a wide range of previous programme participants and potential new contacts.