Art & Soul 2025 Celebration
- maddyhowell
- Nov 26
- 5 min read
As the year draws to a close, we would like to take the opportunity to reflect on everything that Art & Soul has accomplished throughout 2025.
From in-person workshops across the area to exhibitions and gallery visits, this year has been packed full of exciting opportunities for our growing community of artists.
Thank you to everyone who has supported Art & Soul in any way throughout 2025 - from our artists to our trustees and freelancers.
We have already started planning opportunities for 2026, but for now please read on to reflect on everything we accomplished this year.
We hope you all have a wonderful holiday period and a peaceful new year.
The Art & Soul Team
Art & Soul’s 2025 Achievements
Exchange Workshops
In 2025, Art & Soul offered three courses of in-person art workshops to its community.
Taking place at The Exchange in Twickenham, these sessions allowed an opportunity to explore how art can improve mental health and emotional well-being in a supportive group.
Roehampton Workshops
This winter, we ran our first block of workshops at Alton Arts Hub in Roehampton, which were a huge success.
Below we would like to share some feedback from those who joined these sessions:
🌟 "I really enjoyed the class, it was peaceful and relaxing, everyone was very helpful and kind."
🌟 "Thank you so much for having me and providing a new lease of life."
New Participant Sessions
In January, March and May we hosted three workshops at The Exchange dedicated to new participants. These sessions offered a chance for even more local people to get involved in Art & Soul, with a number of those who attended now joining us for our regular workshops at The Exchange.
Whitton Community Centre Pop-Up Exhibition
In February, the Art & Soul community came together for a pop-up exhibition at Whitton Community Centre.
A family friendly event with drop-in creative activities, we loved being able to celebrate our wonderful community of artists.
Children and Young People
Throughout 2025, Art & Soul has continued to provide art sessions to children and young people in South-West London, many of whom are accessing Child and Adolescent Mental Heath Services (CAMHS) through Springfield Hospital and Livingston House.
We also work closely with Achieving For Children to run courses in local secondary schools where young people are given the chance to experiment with a range of art materials and processes.
Below we would like to share some feedback we received on our from our young people this year:
🌟 "I enjoyed being able to talk to people while doing things I like.”
🌟 "I have made friends and found people I have a lot in common with.”
A CAMHs professional also shared the below feedback with us:
🌟 "The group is such a wonderful space for young people and for some young people, the only thing they are interested in accessing is Art & Soul. It definitely had a very warm and relaxed atmosphere!”
Hounslow Workshops
Art & Soul worked alongside The Reach Foundation to coordinate a series of workshops aimed towards young people aged 10-18 years old living in Hounslow, requiring mental health support.
These workshops encouraged participants to focus on storytelling: creating, telling, listening, and embodying their own - and each other's - fictional stories.
Below is some feedback from those who joined these sessions:
🌟 "Creative activities make me really excited. They were inspiring. I feel relaxed. Will we have more of these classes soon?"
🌟 "The workshops were really nice, they helped me tell a really creative story."
Colleagues at The Reach Foundation also shared their thoughts:
🌟 "I wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank you for leading such an amazing art workshop. Your guidance, creativity, and enthusiasm made the experience truly unforgettable for everyone involved."
🌟 "It was inspiring to see how you created a safe and welcoming space for expression and exploration."
Vineyard Community Workshops
This year, we also worked with the Vineyard Community in Richmond to provide workshops for women experiencing domestic abuse and for homeless and sleeping rough clients.
Gallery Visits
In 2025, Art & Soul provided its members with opportunities to visit exhibitions in the local area and beyond.
In February, we facilitated a group visit to Orleans House Gallery to experience their Winter Show and ‘A Ripple in Time’ by Gary Stewart.
In May, we enjoyed a tour of Orleans House Gallery’s main exhibition, Cultural Reforesting. This show looked at our relationship with nature through sculpture, photography, film, research, and more, both inside and out in the gallery’s grounds.
In June, we visited Saatchi Gallery where we experienced a guided tour of the highly popular Flowers exhibition, followed by a relaxed creative workshop playing with painting and collage, inspired by the exhibition.
In September, we took a trip to The Wallace Collection to enjoy Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur, where we particularly enjoyed seeing the incredible works of Madge Gill and Aloïse Corbaz included in the show.
In October we also visited the beautifully restored Jacobean house, Boston Manor House. The visit gave us a chance to marvel at the house's beauty, learn of its history and the families who had lived there, and visited their current exhibition, My Country is My Home: The Polish Community in the United Kingdom.
In December, we enjoyed a tour of the permanent collection at The Courtauld Gallery, followed by a relaxed creative workshop using watercolour to respond to close ups of impressionist paintings by Cezanne, Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh.
Below we would like to share some feedback we received on our visits this year:
🌟"Thanks for the opportunity to see 'Flowers '. I thought it was a very interesting exhibition. Our guide was friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The workshop was fun. It was good to meet up with some old friends. It's so pleasurable to be able to stay in touch even though I can't manage to get to the workshops."
🌟"Thank you so much for organising the trip to the Saatchi Gallery. The exhibition was really interesting and the guide was lovely. I also thoroughly enjoyed the workshop."
We hope to continue these exhibition visits in 2026 on a regular basis.
Please email Maddy - maddy.howell@artandsoul.org.uk - with any recommendations as we can often get free group tickets. We can also enquire about remote tours.
New Acres Wandsworth Raffle
In August, New Acres kindly chose Art & Soul as the benefit charity for their artisan homewares raffle. Hosted at New Acres apartments in Wandsworth, all proceeds from the evening went towards our work. Overall, £1.2k was raised in support of Art & Soul, an incredible amount that will allow us to provide opportunities for art-making and connection to the local community.
The Giving Lottery
We’re now part of The Giving Lottery, which offers our supporters to enter a weekly draw for £1. Every ticket helps us fund our workshops, and by taking part you could win cash prizes.
Donate to Art & Soul
Art & Soul relies on grants and donations in order to continue our work. We receive no core funding, and so we are extremely grateful for any donations - no matter how big or small.
Anything you donate will go towards ensuring Art & Soul can continue its work to help improve the mental health of the local community.
On behalf of the charity, we appreciate you being a part of Art & Soul and want to thank you for continuing to be part of the community.
We look forward to welcoming you in 2026.
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