Echo Soho: Art Fair for Female-Led Galleries

Echo Soho, a new art fair focusing on female-led galleries, launched to address systemic challenges women face in the art world. It aims for lasting impact and tradition, showcasing female artists and leaders.

It was not specified that galleries bring female musicians, though the overwhelming bulk have. (2 galleries, Wilder and Gillian Jason, solely handle females.) Lamb Gallery has brought three little paints by Bea Bonafini (priced at ₤ 3,500 each), while Alice Black is revealing an installment by Rachael Louise Bailey incorporating, among other points, wallpaper designed from washed-up plastic oyster sacks and a vitrine of Louise Bourgeois-esque intestinal tracts. The last work offered on the opening day for ₤ 5,500 to “a significant collection of lady musicians”, says gallery proprietor Alice Black.

Mirror Soho: A New Art Space

James claims she desired to make it as available as possible, also bringing in art handlers from her very own gallery to assist with the install. With 12 galleries, Mirror Soho takes place across 2 floors of Artists House, a Georgian condominium that is home to Soho Revue’s residency programme.

Addressing Systemic Challenges

The art world may be a pink-collar market, with females making up an estimated 75% of the workforce, yet women in management functions– including at galleries– are still in the minority. Enter Echo Soho, a brand-new art fair for female-led galleries, which launched today in a proposal to tackle this discrepancy.

“The point is to address some of the systemic challenges that females deal with in the art world. By concentrating on female-led galleries we really felt there would certainly be even more of a lasting impact and tradition. We didn’t desire it to be a flash-in-the-pan tokenistic point,” claims Charlotte Leseberg Smith, an associate director at Echo Soho and Soho Performance, the gallery released by India Rose James in 2019. The new fair is James’s brainchild.

Future Expansion Plans

James says the reaction from galleries already intending to participate next year suggests she may have to double the present fair’s dimension. Inevitably, she says, she would like to pitch a camping tent in Soho Square and produce a Frieze-style spin off. “That would be the desire, yet we are starting small.”

We really did not want it to be a flash-in-the-pan tokenistic point,” says Charlotte Leseberg Smith, an associate supervisor at Mirror Soho and Soho Performance, the gallery launched by India Rose James in 2019. Liminal Gallery, based in Margate, is the only gallery not from London. “Bringing women artists really felt like the ideal thing to do, since this is a party of ladies in the art world and that does not happen all that typically,” states the gallery’s creator Louise Fitzjohn. James says she wanted to make it as available as feasible, also bringing in art handlers from her own gallery to aid with the install.

Liminal Gallery, based in Margate, is the only gallery not from London. “Bringing women artists really felt like the appropriate point to do, since this is a party of women in the art globe and that does not occur all that usually,” states the gallery’s creator Louise Fitzjohn.