Cafe -21/01

During the exhibition period, Soft Touch Arts will continue to run the ‘pop-up café’ alongside other on-going projects. The café is to be set up every Thursday in the same space as the exhibition, which has the potential to bring in different kinds of audiences and attract greater numbers of people. The first week of running the café in the exhibition space proved successful, as café customers would also have a look at the artworks during their visit.

However, as the café disrupted the space of the exhibition slightly, it seemed, when observing people in the exhibition space, that the majority of people were coming for the café and had a more rushed approach when looking at the artworks in comparison to non-café days. This is possibly because the atmosphere of the exhibition was altered with an increase in people and activity. Towards café closing time, when the atmosphere had mellowed slightly, people appeared to take more time moving round the exhibition. The change in the atmosphere, or buzz, of the Soft Touch site seemed to play a role in people’s engagement with the exhibition and the length of time spent looking at artworks.