LONDON.- Saatchi Gallery launched their social media initiative, #SaatchiTakeover, set out to engage its audiences with art and creativity from all over the world.

With the closure of the gallery and many other cultural institutions around the world, Saatchi Gallery is focusing its efforts by utilising this moment to acknowledge its followers. It is currently a particularly challenging time for individuals to thrive in community environments, made possible by engaging with art and cultural spaces. For this reason, the gallery is calling anyone online - students itching to create, social influencers, collaborators, aspiring artists, and art lovers; to share their artworks with the digital world. To join, users are invited to submit their works at any point during the week considering that they are; (1) inspired by the weekly theme, (2) made during their stay at home, and (3) shared on their feed using the key hashtag #SaatchiTakeover. The Gallery’s favourite works are then announced every Saturday, and will be featured in a post on its Instagram, Facebook and Twitter platforms.

Philippa Adams, Director and Head Curator at Saatchi Gallery comments: “This unprecedented global crisis comes as a shock to us all. Art is an important avenue for expression, and it is now a more crucial time than ever to stay connected and inspired through other means. Launching #SaatchiTakeover on our social platforms will encourage our audiences and anyone with access to the internet to engage creatively, and safely, during this difficult time. Saatchi Gallery remains committed to sharing contemporary art with the world, and we want to celebrate your support and participation by extending our platforms even further. For now, we are unable to open our gallery doors but our digital spaces continues to be open to all.”

The first #SaatchiTakeover opened Monday, 23 March 2020 on Saatchi Gallery’s social media outlets, with its combined following of over 6 million, with the theme ‘shadows’ - inspired by the use of light and reflection in the works by as artists such as Belgian illustrator and filmmaker Vincent Bal (@vincent_bal) . Other themes to follow include exploration of various colours, forms and materials.

The subsequent themes laying the foundation of the criteria for submissions is allocated every following Monday. As such, #SaatchiTakeover aims to offer inspiration to a global audience, encouraging those online to respond to the weekly interchangeable themes in unique ways - with an opportunity to witness their own works on the Gallery’s digital platforms.

The launch of Saatchi Gallery’s digital space every Saturday to its combined of over 6 million audiences lends itself as a platform for everyone, anywhere, in self-isolation, encouraging them to collectively explore Art’s meditative ways of coping, and at the same time reflect and respond with their use their own surroundings - in the hopes that in creativity, those staying at home can bloom and perhaps feel, for even a brief moment, free.