Organising your first exhibition at Winns Gallery might feel like an unrealistic task, with no understanding of where to start. Looking back, mine was both a little bit chaotic and more successful than I expected, and the lessons I plan to implement in the future.
The first decision, and probably the most important one, was settling on a concept before anything else. “Beautiful and Useful” came from William Morris’s own philosophy, and once we had that phrase, almost everything else followed naturally. All the participating creatives are Walthamstow-based: I curated the exhibition and showed film photographs of Walthamstow, Angus Forbes-Cable presented portraits of Walthamstow’s residents and landscapes of the area and Michael Bowles presented pieces from his art collection, which are both useful and beautiful.
The venue, in the middle of Lloyd Park and right next door to the William Morris Gallery, the artists, the workshops, even the flowers in the room, all needed to reference that idea in some way. I personally feel that in order to start, you want to have a vague idea of the concept, a feeling of what the exhibition will look like (a Pinterest board usually helps a lot with that). We are not talking about a proper concept yet, as it might stop perfectionists from proceeding to the next step.
Now, with a vague idea of the concept, you need to find a venue within your budget. We didn’t have any, but were lucky to find out about a local creative grant from the William Morris Big Local.
The theme aligned perfectly (however, sometimes you need to make your exhibition fit the grant rules or theme). I applied for the grant around 9 months before the proposed exhibition dates, mid-June 2024. We received the grant of £736.30, added a few hundred pounds from our own pockets and were able to finally pay the gallery hire fee, buy all the frames, labels, print the text explaining the concept on an A2 paper and posters to put up in the windows of shops around the area.
With a tight budget we were hoping to get some in-kind donations. I asked friends to help set up the exhibition and supervise it during opening hours. I also started reaching out to local small businesses hoping to get some drinks and decor for free.
Two local businesses and a local musician supported us: Neckstamper Brewery provided refreshments for the opening party and Borrowed Light Floral Studio brought greenery that echoed the show’s themes of nature, and a live violin performance added atmosphere on the first evening.
No matter how great you art show is, if it’s not promoted, no one would come and see it. Indeed partnerships and posters helped spread the word, but we also invested into Meta Ads on Instagram to reach the local audience interested in the art. We were also lucky to have coincided the exhibition with the E17 Art Trail, an annual event run by Artillery CIC, celebrating local artists in Walthamstow. For a first exhibition, this mattered enormously, as we were a part of a bigger creative festival and were featured on the Bloomberg Connects art trail map. It meant that people were already planning to see multiple venues over the course of the weekend and would be coming to the venue without necessarily knowing the artists. You can also utilise any other events happening around the gallery. As Winns Gallery is located in a popular park, there are frequently fun fairs and other community events nearby which drive audiences towards the venue – just put an A-board outside to raise awareness (and don’t forget to mention that entrance is free, if it is).
Programming across the three days gave visitors multiple reasons to come and multiple ways to engage once they arrived. The opening party brought together artists, neighbours, and local business owners in one room. A basket-making workshop, led by a local weaver, connected to Walthamstow’s history near the Wetlands, a beautiful and useful craft so overlooked that almost no record of it remains in the area today. And throughout the run, a free drop-in collage activity let visitors make something of their own, using the exhibited work as inspiration. By the final day, their contributions were displayed alongside ours.
The numbers, when they came in, were better than I’d dared hope. Almost 600 visitors over three days, four artworks sold, and a workshop so popular the morning session filled before 10am despite the rain. But the figures only tell part of the story. What stayed with me was watching people linger far longer than expected, sitting down to make collages, asking questions about the weaving, treating the space as somewhere to spend an afternoon rather than pass through.
Looking back, I would definitely measure every single wall, nook and cranny to create a to scale plan of the gallery during the preliminary site visit. When setting up, we just rocked up in the gallery space with the artwork without a clear plan of where each piece would go. I just grouped the works by theme beforehand and had a vague idea of the placement on the walls. I would also try to spread the word more with printed materials put up in more stores and ask more people to repost the exhibition poster on their social media and WhatsApp groups. For a more professional look and to free my hands I would also consider hiring a professional photographer to take gallery stills and photos of the guests during the opening party. This is great for artists’ portfolios and provides extra content for social media.
What organising a first exhibition teaches you, more than anything, is that none of it happens alone. Every workshop, every partnership, every visitor who stayed an extra hour was the result of someone being ready to help us and liking the idea. If you’re about to do this for the first time, that’s the part worth holding onto: build the concept, find your people, and trust that the rest will follow.
