South by South West (SXSW) London, the primary iteration of the celebrated South by South West pageant to happen within the UK capital, will run from 2 to 7 June 2025 in east London’s Shoreditch. Initially held in Austin, Texas, this new location will combine visible arts into the pageant’s six-day programme of music, movie, tradition and know-how.
“Once I take into consideration London, I’ve at all times been interested in this concept that the music scene is totally melded along with style and the visible arts,” says Patrick Moore, a board member of SXSW London and former government director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
“This entire ethos and design of our location [in Shoreditch] is predicated on having this interplay and collaboration,” Randel Bryan, managing director of SXSW London, mentioned final week. “We name them stunning collisions. Folks come collectively from completely different disciplines they usually’re all actually keen about how they’ll create one thing new.”
Grassroots help for visible arts
The curator Beth Greenacre has been appointed visible arts adviser to the pageant. An extended-time collaborator with the enormously influential musician and collector David Bowie, Greenacre was curator of Bowie’s assortment till his loss of life in 2016 and was additionally director of Bowieart, a web-based platform supporting younger rising artists.
Greenacre will work with a group that features Adem Holness, beforehand head of latest music at Southbank Centre, as head of music and Anna Bogutskaya, previously with the BFI and Edinburgh Worldwide Movie Competition, as head of display screen. Katy Arnander, who has beforehand labored with Barbican and Sadler’s Wells, is director of programming, whereas Alex Poots will act as a artistic adviser to the pageant whereas persevering with to work full-time at The Shed in New York.
One of many issues that almost all excites Greenacre about this function is “the community-driven grassroots facet of South by Southwest. And tapping into the latest historical past of London and the visible arts”, she tells The Artwork Newspaper. She is happy to take action in Shoreditch, which was such a “fertile stomping floor” for the Younger British Artists (YBAs), within the early 2000s—some extent when “the London artwork world took maintain of the reins and we’re the place we’re at the moment due to it”.
“I’ve at all times been serious about supporting new expertise,” Greenacre says, “so supporting these that will not have had the alternatives beforehand will likely be nice.” She has been all through her working life, she says, within the convergence of artwork kinds.
“I labored with David Bowie from very early in my profession [in the 1990s] and who higher to show us that one does not make distinctions between artwork kinds and that there aren’t hierarchies between completely different artwork kinds. That is one thing that i used to be aware about, supported and championed with David … This concept of cross-pollination, the ecosystem of the artwork kinds all coming collectively to help each other, I believe could be very attention-grabbing and beneficial and important.”
Greenacre is especially trying ahead to working with London’s broad array of arts establishments. The pageant comes at a very vital time, she says “when our establishments and venues want that help. I believe it’s critical proper now that there’s power and enter and content material and help for creating new content material for these venues which are all struggling just a little.”
The SXSW model
SXSW London—in frequent with an Australian model of the pageant which launched in Sydney in 2023 and returns in October—is offered by an entity which has licensed the title and rights from the Austin-based flagship enterprise, which retains management over the SXSW model.
“A shorter date format relative to SXSW in Austin [which typically runs for nine days], will enable SXSW London to run its convention, music, display screen and humanities programmes on the identical time, guaranteeing accessibility to a number of programming codecs and various networking alternatives for attendees from completely different industries,” Randel Bryan mentioned,
“Bringing SXSW to the streets of Shoreditch will enable us to create a pageant like no different, one which unfolds throughout unbelievable indoor areas while additionally showcasing creativity and creative experiences in distinctive public areas, permitting us to seize the power and pleasure of the summer time.”
SXSW London, 2-7 June 2025, Shoreditch, east London
