Somerset House has today announced, as part of its 25th milestone birthday year, the five recipients of its new initiative Talent 25, chosen by an esteemed industry panel, led by acclaimed interdisciplinary artist Yinka Ilori.
Talent 25 expands upon Somerset House’s ongoing commitment to investing in creative potential and developing talents of the future, with a firm emphasis on those who are underrepresented in the creative industries. The existing talent pathways offer a unique approach for artists, makers, creative enterprises and entrepreneurs to develop their skills, practice and networks, so they can thrive. The Talent 25 scheme spotlights innovative gamechangers from its creative community, providing them with a bursary and professional developmental support.
The artists come from across Somerset House’s Home of Cultural Innovators, a vibrant, multi-disciplinary creative community, including Somerset House Studios, Makerversity, Black Business Residency (sponsored by Morgan Stanley with additional support from M&C Saatchi) and Somerset House Exchange, and range from emerging talent to those at the cusp of a breakthrough moment. They are enorê from Somerset House Studios, a Brazilian artist whose work spans various mediums, including 3D printed ceramics, textiles, digital media, and video; Identity 2.0 (Arda Awais & Savena Surana) from Somerset House Exchange, an interdisciplinary art project co-founded by Arda and Savena whose work focuses on making the concept of digital identity accessible and engaging for a broad audience; Piarve Wetshi from Black Business Residency, the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Colèchi, a Black-owned collective and research agency that focuses on sustainable development in fashion; Shanti Bell from Makerversity, an artist known for creating experiential sculptures that explore the relationship between sculpture and the human form and Tyreis Holder from Somerset House Studios, an artist, poet, and visual storyteller.
Yinka Ilori said: “Somerset House has played a pivotal role in my creative journey, offering a platform that nurtures innovation and amplifies voices that might otherwise go unheard. I'm proud to support Talent 25, an initiative that reflects Somerset House’s ongoing commitment to fostering the next generation of forward-thinking talent. This is about opening opportunities for cultural pioneers to thrive and providing the support needed to turn ideas into impactful work. Together, we’re building pathways for the future of creativity.”
Throughout 2025, Somerset House will platform their practice and work across multiple outlets and audiences will have an opportunity to see the work of the Talent 25 creatives as part of Somerset House’s Step Inside 25 weekend in September: a free, open-to-all invitation for audiences to celebrate Somerset House’s milestone year and position as the home of cultural innovators as the entire building opens up for audiences to discover and explore. Visionary photographer Jennie Baptiste, who has her own exhibition as part of Somerset House’s 25th birthday programme, will shoot the portraits of the recipients as part of their award, showcasing the creative connection and diverse creativity that is fostered at Somerset House.
Pooja Sitpura, Head of Inclusive Talent Engagement at Somerset House said: “Talent 25 encapsulates what we do at Somerset House with our talent development programmes: nurturing the next generation of innovators and empowering underrepresented talent, providing them with the platform and support needed to thrive in the creative industry. These worthy recipients are the future of creativity and I can’t wait to see what they do next.”
Talent 25 Recipients
enorê from Somerset House Studios
enorê is a visual artist working with digital and material practices to examine the entanglements between virtuality and physical embodiment. Primarily working with 3D printed ceramics, they use clay as a catalyst to question how digital data can be mediated through physical processes, with an interest in clay's potentiality as a pervasive and highly temporal material. This is developed by exploring the fluidity between multiple realms, not only limited to physical or digital, and observing the shapes that the translations between these systems take. The reconfiguration of the virtual data body, now stripped of its flesh, into physical existence in clay, points to a new type of matter: existing between the slippery gaps of translation, between virtual and physical, tangible and ethereal.
Some recent exhibitions include Poetics of Encryption at KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), Points of Return at Somerset House Studios (London), and PIPA Prize (Rio de Janeiro) where they were a 2024 prize awardee. Recent commissions include Meta Open Arts, Contemporary And (C&), and The Public Statues and Sculpture Association (PSSA). They have previously facilitated workshops at the Victoria & Albert Museum, York Art Gallery, and South London Gallery, and currently teach on the BA Fine Arts at Kingston University.
Identity 2.0 from Somerset House Exchange
Identity 2.0 is a creative studio imagining better digital futures. Their work tells different stories about our relationship to technology. They transform research into creative mediums and develop playful knowledge spaces. Working amongst partners, they shape exciting but important stories about technology alongside their studio work. They have a unique blend of creative skills and technology knowledge, allowing them to work easily with creatives and techies.
Their interdisciplinary work has spanned exhibitions, printed zines, workshops and digital experiences. They have worked with Stop Killer Robots, Feminist Internet and the Goethe Institut and have spoken around the world about their experiences, including at the University of Oxford and World Web Foundation. Their work has received praise from Mozilla, AccessNow and Kevin Roose and they have also been named #WebChampions by Tim Berners-Lee and selected for the first DesignKind programme by the British Council and Pentagram.
Arda Awais and Savena Surana co-founded Identity 2.0: Arda Awais is an award winning multidisciplinary designer and creative technologist with expertise in User Experience Design. Previously, she worked for clients such as Tate, Dove, and Soho House. She has received the BIMA 100 award in the creators and designers category and was selected to be a Design Council expert to work on projects accelerating the #DesignforPlanet mission.
Savena Surana (she/her) is a creative producer, strategist, and artist who is focused on telling stories for good. She has worked with the Mastercard Foundation, Westminster Forum of Democracy, and Careful Trouble. She is also the program manager at the micro-grants charity Grand Plan and recently completed a year-long program as an associate board member for Abandon Normal Devices.
Piarvé Wetshi from Black Business Residency (sponsored by Morgan Stanley with additional support from M&C Saatchi)
Piarvé is a co-founder at Coléchi, a research agency and collective actioning sustainable development across the fashion industry and consumer landscapes. She is also the co-founder of Last Yarn, a marketplace reselling surplus fabric, and takes this dedication to reducing textile waste into the core of her projects. She has made it on the Elle UK's Green List 2024 and Vogue Business 100 Innovators 2024 list.
Shanti Bell from Makerversity
Shanti is a multidisciplinary artist based in London, creating experiential sculpture. By making work that is interactive, immersive, and wearable, her practice seeks to explore the relationship and overlap between sculpture and the human form. Her sculptural work is primarily in the medium of wood and fabric, where they sculpt and design pieces in synergy with the human body, personifying objects and injecting life into the inanimate.
Shanti has collaborated with a range of different disciplines and practitioners which is a crucial part of pushing the boundaries of her creative outcomes and previous collaborations have led to work with drummers, skateboarders, movement directors, musicians, poets, and dancers.
Shanti completed an MA in Fashion at the Royal College of Art, supported with a scholarship from both the RCA and the British Fashion Council. Past works have seen Shanti collaborate with a range of different creatives and platforms such as Bianca Saunders, BOLD Agency & Somerset House, Wayne McGregor & The Royal Opera House, record label 4AD, Bridgerton & The British Fashion Council, and The Design Museum and been featured in various publications such as Vogue, System Magazine, Revue Magazine, 1 Granary, and AnOther Magazine. Most recently, Shanti had a solo show titled The Room that Shared with the curatorial platform MAMA and was awarded the Black British Artist Grant by Samuel Ross.
Tyreis Holder from Somerset House Studios
Tyreis is an Artist, Poet, Visual Storyteller and Community arts practitioner from South London, with heritage reigning from Jamaican/St Vincent. She works heavily in mediums pertaining to installation, textiles, performance, poetry, sculpture and sound. Her practice centres around explorations of self, identity politics, generational/ancestral healing, spirituality, and the relationship with the mind, particularly within regards to navigating colonial spaces.
Primary grounds for exploration pertain to how textiles poses as poetic language, functioning as a healing device- specifically in regards to trauma experienced by black women. Bringing lived experiences into her practice, she aims to generate conversations around how social and intimate spaces are shaped through race, diffability*, community, heritage, class, sexuality and culture.