The Delfina Foundation, home to the UK’s largest international artist residency programme, has launched an ambitious fundraising campaign to secure its base in central London’s St James’s and continue its programmes.
“We need to raise £7m for our overall campaign. The majority of this is to secure our building that has housed 450 artists and curators over the past 17 years. We are a vital pipeline incubating creative talent in the UK and around the world,” says Aaron Cezar, the director of Delfina Foundation. More than £1m has so far been pledged for the campaign, which is called A Home for Artists.
The foundation, and its predecessor organisation Delfina Studios (1988 to 2006), were founded by the philanthropist Delfina Entrecanales, who died in 2022. “Our founder owned the building which passed it on to her grandchildren. We've been negotiating with the heirs to consolidate ownership of the building. Thankfully Delfina's son, Charles Wansbrough, who is also one of our trustees, has been leading this process with the family and he's made the first contribution,” Cezar tells The Art Newspaper.
The non-profit foundation runs a year-round residency programme, through which six to eight residents are selected to take part in programmes lasting up to three months. The venue also hosts an exhibition and events programme, working with partners across the UK and the world.
Cezar says: “Crucially if we imagine the cultural landscape in the UK without the kind of support that Delfina has offered, we imagine a really bleak landscape. We bring 40 practitioners to the UK every year, but those individuals go home so the impact of the work happens in both places.”
The money raised will be used in various ways, including renovating the building to meet environmental standards. “There's some expansion we can do to create more internal space and better working spaces for artists. This means using our galleries very flexibly as a project space. We also want to do more with our alumni because we have this incredible network,” says Cezar.
“We also want to work much more with the talent pipeline at its earlier stages, supporting A-level, undergraduate and postgraduate students in London. We’ll take what we do as an organisation with our residents and identify ways we could support the talent pipeline. This entails hiring a learning curator, a new permanent member of my team, to do learning and outreach work.”
Six foundation alumni are representing national pavilions at the Venice Biennale this year, including Wael Shawky who is showing Drama 1882 in the Egyptian pavilion. The South Korean artist Haegue Yang, who has an exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery (Leap Year, until 5 January), was also a Delfina resident in 2004. Haegue Yang says: “My time at Delfina was pivotal to my practice. Delfina nurtures artists during key stages of their development.”
