| 2008 Exhibition
The Spirit Level, Royal Festival Hall,
Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
www.southbankcentre.org.uk
Tel. 0871 633 2500
Tubes: Waterloo or Embankment.
27 September - 9 November 2008
(Sales from 3 October)
Daily 10 am - 10 pm
Admission free
(Exhibition tours by members of the Koestler team every Thursday at 6 pm and every Saturday at 3 pm.)
Sponsored by:
 
A new venue and partner
This year's Koestler Exhibition will be at the Southbank Centre, one of the UK's leading national arts venues, overlooking the Thames in central London. This marks the start of a 3 - 4 - year partnership with the Southbank Centre, in which we hope to see the exhibition grow into a multi-artform festival of arts from across the criminal justice system.
The Spirit Level is the Southbank's new community and education space - on the ground floor of the Royal Festival Hall (underneath the Clore Ballroom). It includes workshop rooms for talks and events, as well as the exhibition space. It is fully accessible to wheelchairs. There are lots of toilets, shops and refreshments on site and nearby.
Sponsors
We areabsolutely delighted that - as in 2007 - the exhibition's principal sponsor will be the financial media company Bloomberg. Bloomberg's commitment to the arts is well-known from their own gallery Bloomberg Space, which exhibited Koestler artworks last year. Bloomberg staff have provided Koestler not only with very generous funding, but also with lots of in-kind support and expertise. They are a simply a pleasure to work with.
We are also very pleased to announce a co-sponsor for this year's exhibition - the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. The YJB is the Government agency thatoversees the youth justice system, aiming to prevent offending by under 18s and to ensure that custody for them is safe, secure and addresses the causes of their offending. The Koestler Exhibiton forms part of the YJB's 10th anniversary celebrations, which is partly why we have involved young people in the exhibition design.
Curated by young offenders
The exhibition will be curated by a group of young offenders. We believe that this is a first for any national art show.
The8 to 10 young offenders, all aged under 18, are being referred by the London Borough of Lambeth - the borough in which the Southbank Centre is located. During August, they are working as a group with a worker from Lambeth Youth Offending Service, a curator from the Southbank Centre, and a youth worker from Flipside, a charity that works with young people in the local community.
Having learnt about the role and responsibility of curating, the young peopleare coming to the Koestler Arts Centre to select around 150 works for exhibition from the 5,000 Koestler Award entries. They will be involved in the design and hang at the Southbank Centre, and some of their comments will be included in the displays.
We hope that the project will be apowerful learning experience for the participants. We are sure that it will give a unique flavour and perspective to this year's Koestler show.
Events
Watch this space! We are planning a programme of events around the exhibition, hopefully including a poetry reading, a music performance and a day for families of the exhibited artists.
Members of the Koestler team will be offering free guided tours of the show every Thursday at 6 pm and every Saturday at 3 pm.
Invitations to the official opening will be sent out in mid-August. The date, to be confirmed, is likely to be in early October.
New visitors' awards
For the first time we are inviting everyone to be Koestler Awards judges. Use a voting card at the Southbank Centre to vote for your favourite exhibit. The exhibits that receive the most votes will win new Koestler Public Vote Awards. The voting card also allows you to write anonymous comments on the exhibit, which we will forward to the artist in prison or other establishment.
We urgently need a sponsor for these new public vote awards. If you can help, please contact our Development Worker Hayley Sothinathan hsothinathan@koestertrust.org.uk
Buying at the exhibition
Postcards and other merchandise will available in the Southbank Centre shops.
From 3 October, many of the artworks at the exhibition will be for sale: make your selection, then ring us with your credit card details on 020 8740 0333.
We are also opening the Koestler Arts Centre for sale of thousands of artworks not selected for the Southbank exhibition. This will be from 29 October to 2 November (weekdays 11 - 7, weekends 12 - 4).
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