Programming

Early Years Programming: The gallery will provide fabric samples to parents with young children to engage them through a sensory experience.  

Schools and Teachers Programming: Discussions between students and teachers about poetry (English), architecture (Math), history (artist and sitters), and oil technique (science).

Key Stage 1 Preschool: The gallery will host an event series where children bring in an object that means a lot to them and they will talk about how that item is important to them and how it represents them.  

Key Stage 2 Primary: Participants will paint a self-portrait, looking at what their clothing says about you and what objects they would want to include to demonstrate their personality.

Key Stage 3/4 Secondary: Drawing inspiration from Laura Battiferri’s portrait, participants will write poetry that reflects who they are and represents their identity. 

Key Stage 5 College and up: Students will design an outfit inspired by the exhibition, learning about fashion in Renaissance Florence and what the clothes would have been like.

Young Adults: A series of painting workshops will be hosted that show young adults how to paint in the oil technique.

Families: There will be a photographer set up to take family photos to commemorate their visit. A cartoonist will be there once a week to do caricatures of the visitors.

Adults: Poetry readings from Dante and Petrarch, including the sonnets that are written on the pages of Laura Battiferri's book, poetry by Laura Battiferri herself, and poetry by Bronzino.

Access: The gallery will provide audio guides for visitors with vision disabilities. Large text print sheets will be provided for those who can not read the text panels very well. Private viewings for those with special needs will be hosted to mitigate the overwhelming anxiety of having an excess of visitors during their experience.

Special Needs: The gallery will host a tactile sensory workshop, with an emphasis on sensory experiences, including feeling fabrics, exploring colour and hearing poetry. 

LGBTQIA+: Discussions in the exhibition space about how historical practices of gender expression relate to current understandings of fashion and the relationship it has to other identities.

Community: A photography contest will be hosted throughout the London community, and one entry each week will be displayed on a plaque outside the exhibition.  

Senior: Lectures will be held on subjects such as poetry, Bronzino, his technique, style, the lives of the sitters.