Adeola is interviewed by BA Culture, Criticism and Curation Associate Lecturer Ellen Mara De Wachter
I've always loved art in different forms – beyond fine art and painting. I've always enjoyed music, film, and literature writing. I always knew that I had an interest there.
When I left school, I took a gap year and first worked for the tech company IBM, which was super corporate and very different to what I do now. I learned a lot about the world in terms of how people work and developed a lot of transferable skills.
After working there, I went to Cambodia where I volunteered briefly at the Children's Daycare Centre. Then I moved to China, where I studied Mandarin in a small language school and did a diploma in Communicative Chinese when I came back to the UK.
I really enjoyed learning a new language, but I wanted to do something more creative, so I applied to CSM for the BA CCC course. During that time, I interned at Whitechapel Gallery, within the archives, and that's where I fell in love with the arts and galleries.
I spent the summer of second year at the Venice Architecture Biennale where I did a fellowship with the British Council and got to go around to all the pavilions.
In my final year, I applied to Sotheby's programme where they take six people who rotate across the auction house. So, I did that once I graduated and then started working at online art marketplace Artsy in December of 2020 where I’ve been ever since.
I'd always known about CSM and thought it was such an amazing hub of creativity. There was a lot I could learn from – not just the lectures, but from the students themselves. Being in a space where you're surrounded by different creatives was the perfect environment for me to learn and grow.
The course itself appealed to me because it's multidisciplinary and I wanted something that felt very broad. You don't have to stick to art history or journalism specifically – you can get a sense of lots of different subjects and figure out what you're interested in.
I always tell people about one of the electives I took, pop culture. We got to learn all about its origins and even do a module on conspiracy theories, which was really cool. I also had an elective in art markets, which is where I learned everything that I needed to know about working for an auction house.
In first year, we worked in groups and came up with a proposal for a vitrine space. We also did a project about paintings in hospitals, so we got to visit a hospital near the Strand and make a proposal of how we would bring art into the space, which was really interesting.
Eye opening. There's nothing quite like it, even if you end up working in art afterwards.
CSM is known for how people dress and being surrounded by people who use fashion as a form of self-expression. A lot of artists also use the building and Granary Square as a space to experiment with their practice.
There was once time when I was running late to a lecture and saw someone stood in the hallway completely naked doing a controversial performance piece. That was such a normal thing, and people are allowed to express themselves. I think that’s really, really special.
That's a great question. I didn't know the pathway that I was going to take – I don’t think anyone really knows when they're graduating. During final year, I realised I wanted to work within art, but I just didn't know what I specifically wanted to do.
I applied to Sotheby’s because I felt like it would be a good learning opportunity. When you’re a fresh graduate with barely any experience, it’s hard to find an organisation that wants to train young people and Sotheby’s made the most sense because it’s got a very long history.
I'm the senior curatorial manager at Artsy, and my role is very exciting – I’d say this is my dream job.
One of the main things that I get to do is curate different collections that we then share with our audience and those works are available for sale. That could be anything from a collection of works of landscapes, work made specifically by women artists or a collection of tabletop sculptures.
The most exciting thing I get to do is curate the art on the New York subway. We do monthly billboard campaigns, so every month I come up with a different theme and we take over all the digital billboards in the New York subway.
I also get to write for our editorial teams, so every month I write articles about emerging artists. For Black History Month, I worked specifically with five black-owned galleries to showcase their artists. For Women's History Month, it was all women artists, and we focused on self-portraiture.
Oh, that's a great question. CSM really helped with refining my writing skills because CCC is an essay-based course. It also really helped with critical thinking – being able to analyse different things and approach them from a slightly different perspective.
CSM is also about thinking outside the box and approaching things non-traditionally. Coming into a company like Artsy, I see myself gravitate towards slightly unconventional art and CSM certainly helps me tap into that knowledge and be able to identify and share artists outside the traditional art ecosystem.
One of the things that I do outside of my job is being on the board of trustees for an arts charity called Hospital Rooms, so we work with artists who go into National Health Service (NHS) hospitals across the UK and make those spaces more liveable for mental health patients. I would love to continue that work and find new ways for artists to connect with everyday people.
In terms of careers aspirations, I hope the projects get bigger and more exciting and I get to bring artists and people together. I’d love to one day host an artist residency where artists would get to spend three to six months working on their practice in an amazing space and host an exhibition in the end.
The Other Art Girl
@theotherartgirl