This autumn, Tate St Ives is continuing its dedicated year-round family programme ‘Teylu at Tate’ with two major strands.
Josie KO. Photograph: Tamsin McArthur
The first is the Teylu Visiting Artist project, led by Josie KO, from 24th to 28th September 2025. This will be followed by a STUDIO DO takeover by artist duo Leap then Look during the October half-term, from 18th October until 2nd November.
Teylu (which comes from the Cornish word for family) at Tate offers inter-generational and inclusive opportunities for families to spend time together, explore exhibitions, and take part in creative activities with artists.
The Teylu Visiting Artist will work in the heart of the Foyle Studio each year to co-create an immersive artwork with local families, schools, and community groups. This year, artist Josie KO is leading a week-long series of drop-in making sessions, beginning today and for the next four days.
Josie is collaborating with community groups and visitors to create a large-scale figurative artwork, combining sculpture and non-traditional materials, such as twine, newspapers, and found objects, to explore parallel histories and reimagined representations of Cornish and Scottish folklore.
This will culminate on Sunday (28th September) with a £1 per person Family Day, when families can join Josie in the studio to make and visit exhibitions across the gallery.
Her sculptural installations explore hidden histories of black British culture. Josie deliberately uses hand-made methods and found recycled materials to present reimagined depictions of the black female body.
Bringing together kitsch and DIY aesthetics, full of colour and humour, her work celebrates the hand-made, and rejects norms of Western art. The scale of these works makes them unavoidably noticeable, which for Josie counteracts the erasure of black women in art history.
A Leap Then Look session. Photograph: Hugh Fox
STUDIO DO transforms the Foyle Studio into a space for families to make, rest, and experiment at their own pace, whether that’s building, drawing, or simply taking time out together. The Foyle Studio will be transformed into a sculpt, move and play space, inviting visitors of all ages to create and collaborate.
This takeover also marks the beginning of Palais Play, a three-year project inspired by Barbara Hepworth and developed in response to the re-imagining of the Palais de Danse, Hepworth’s second studio in St Ives.
As part of this collaboration, Leap then Look will also lead a special edition of Toddle Tate on Tuesday, 21st October, introducing under-fives and their grown-ups to their practice through playful exploration of looking, making, and thinking.
Led by artists Lucy Cran and Bill Leslie, Leap then Look create interactive artworks, workshops, and participatory projects with people of all ages and backgrounds, including those with cognitive differences. Their work is grounded in the belief that contemporary art can be made accessible to everyone, and that engaging with new ways of looking, making, and thinking can be valuable for all. Their practice spans sculpture, installation, film, and performance, with a focus on vivid, hands-on experiences of contemporary art.
Teylu at Tate includes seasonal highlights such as the annual Teylu Festival, Beach Art Explorers on Porthmeor Beach, Toddle Tate sessions for under-fives, and regular school holiday STUDIO DO workshops.
With £1 family days, free entry for Local Pass holders and under-18s, and a focus on accessible formats, Teylu at Tate builds on Tate St Ives’ long-standing commitment to accessibility and inclusion.
“We’re so excited to welcome Josie KO and Leap then Look to Tate St Ives and support them to share their work with our local community,” said Jenny Tipton, curator of families, schools, and young people at Tate St Ives.
“Both of their practices are uniquely placed to provide visitors with first-hand experiences of making and learning about being an artist today, while also expressing the powerful message that art is for all within their work.”
