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How did you celebrate your 25th birthday? If I recall correctly, mine involved half a dozen pints, a couple of shots, a drunk Maccies on the night bus home and a monumental hangover the next day.
But the Tate Modern is a hell of a lot more sophisticated that I was at 25, and its quarter-century celebration this weekend knocks my little pub gathering out the park. Featuring four days of free workshops, talks, participatory performances, live music and late night DJ sets, the massive weekender starts tomorrow, and the gallery has just announced yet more cool stuff happening across the weekend.
Alongside already-announced DJ line-ups curated by some amazing London crews and collectives the gallery has revealed two huge headliners. Friday’s late opening spotlights south London’s vibrant creative communities, and will feature a headline set from The xx member turned solo artist Romy, who will be taking to the decks for a 2-hour DJ set from 10pm-midnight, with earlier sets curated by the likes of Peckham listening bar Jumbi and British Caribbean festival Radiate.
Saturday night’s festivities will see the gallery taken over by yet more cutting-edge artists and collectives, including a rare London set by Afrobeats station Cultur FM in the Tanks, featuring a headline set from BBC Radio 1 DJ Jaguar. Other DJs throughout the evening have been curated by South Asian creative collective Daytimers, female-fronted Peckham station foundation.fm, Afro-Caribbean LGBTQ+party Queer Bruk and artist and DJ Crystallmess. The gallery will also be hosting a full day of activities beforehand, including live tarot readings as part of Meschac Gaba’s Museum of Contemporary African Art exhibition and site-specific participatory installation Measuring the Universe.
And best of all? Tate Modern has announced that all of its paid exhibitions will be free throughout the four-day celebration for members of the Tate Collective, its free-to-join scheme for 16 to 25-year-olds. If you, like Tate Modern, are lucky enough to be in your early twenties, you can sign up here to nab free entry to Leigh Bowery! and Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet.
If not, there’s no better time to sign up for a Tate membership, with the gallery offering Lifetime Memberships for a limited time only, allowing art lovers to enjoy the gallery’s fantastic programme of temporary exhibitions free of charge for the next 25 years.
Planning on joining the festivities? Many of the events across the four-day celebration are drop-in, but you will need to secure free tickets for some of the more popular ones. Be sure to check out the full programme to the four-day party on the Tate’s website and reserve some tickets ahead of your visit. Catch us raving it up in the Turbine Hall!
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