Details of Tyburn Foundation: A New Model for Long-Term Artistic Development
A conversation with Emma Mennell about sustainable artist development, international residencies and rethinking institutional support.
Welcome back, Art Enthusiasts,
What does it mean to champion an artist in 2025? Not just exhibit their work, not just facilitate a sale, but support their development over years, across continents, free from the relentless pressures of market cycles?
Last week in Paris, Art Basel Paris returned for its fourth edition and established itself as one of the world’s major contemporary art events, with headline sales including a $23 million Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (1987) at Hauser & Wirth and Amedeo Modigliani’s Jeune fille aux macarons (1918), which sold for “just under” $10 million to a private European institution. Yet, only a few “rue” away, Emma Mennell was offering a more enduring response to the question of what it means to champion artists today. At PIASA, the prestigious French auction house on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Tyburn Foundation presented Quiet Grounds, their inaugural exhibition showcasing works from four African artists who had just completed residencies in Italy and Zimbabwe.
The timing was strategic and remarkably bold: it is extremely rare for a foundation in its inaugural year to stake such a visible and influential presence during one of the world’s most high-profile art weeks.
Emma Mennell’s transition from gallery director to foundation founder exemplifies a new model of artistic patronage. Having observed firsthand the constraints of commercial frameworks, particularly for emerging and mid-career artists from Africa, she established Tyburn Foundation on principles of sustained engagement, long-term commitment and transnational exchange.
Founded in early 2025, the Foundation operates residency programmes at La Foce and Civitella Ranieri in Umbria, Italy, as well as at Animal Farm Artist Residency in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, building connections across continents and continuing to champion African artists within increasingly challenging global art ecosystems.
“Quiet Grounds” brought together works by Primrose Panashe Chingandu, Driaan Claassen, Michele Mathison and Mbali Tshabalala, artists whose residency experiences with Tyburn Foundation pushed them beyond their established practices into new territories of experimentation and reflection.
This week, we sat down with Emma Mennell to discuss the mission of Tyburn Foundation, the power of place in artistic development and what it means to build alternative infrastructure for African artists within an increasingly challenging global art ecosystem.
PoD: Tyburn Foundation was founded at the start of 2025, building on the legacy of Tyburn Gallery. What inspired you to create a non-profit foundation?
EM: Tyburn Gallery was an exciting and formative journey for all involved, and it has been wonderful to see many of the artists we represented go on to achieve international acclaim. Over the past years, a confluence of structural, economic, and cultural shifts have been reshaping the art world. These changes have highlighted the fragility of traditional gallery models and heightened the challenges facing especially smaller galleries.
I wanted to continue working closely with emerging and mid-career artists from Africa, but in a less commercial context which prioritised slow, sustainable growth through curatorial engagement, residencies, and meaningful patronage. The Foundation emerged from that desire: to create a structure that supports artists’ practices over time free from the harsh pressures of the market, with space for deeper reflection, experimentation and exchange.
PoD: How does running a foundation differ from your previous experience running a gallery?
EM: Working in a non-profit space certainly allows for greater collaboration and communication. Our residency partners, Civitella Ranieri and Animal Farm Artist Residency, play a crucial role in shaping what we do. Each brings its own ecosystem and community, and the experience is grounded in partnership, exchange and connection.
Running a foundation is primarily about facilitation - creating the conditions for dialogue and growth, bridging continents, fostering networks and encouraging artists to think expansively about their practices within a global context.
PoD: If you had to sum up Tyburn Foundation’s mission, what would it be?
EM: To champion artists over the long term, giving them the time, space, and support to continue their creative journeys and play their vital role in society.
PoD: Quiet Grounds was your inaugural exhibition, coinciding with Paris Art Basel week and held at PIASA. How did this partnership come about?
EM: Exhibitions are a vital part of our mission. They offer a space where artists’ ideas can be shared and experienced by audiences in ways that extend the impact of their residencies. PIASA has a long-standing reputation for dynamic presentations of modern and contemporary art and design, and their building in Paris provides an inspiring setting for our inaugural exhibition.
The partnership came about through a shared interest in presenting new perspectives from Africa and the diaspora within international cultural circuits, in an environment that values experimentation and curatorial dialogue.
PoD: The exhibition brings together artists from residencies in both Italy and Zimbabwe. What’s the idea behind this exhibition?
EM: By offering artists not only the opportunity of a residency but also an exhibition, we wanted to extend the residency’s impact beyond the studio and into the public realm.
Quiet Grounds reflects both the physical landscapes and the psychological spaces of our residencies, places offering the space and time for exploration and for ideas to settle. The title evokes stillness, reflection, and renewal, and importantly, the idea of grounding - a return to what is essential.
PoD: Speaking of place, Tyburn Foundation has its own space at La Foce (Umbria), and has residencies in partnership with Civitella Ranieri (also in Umbria) and Animal Farm in Zimbabwe. What makes each location unique, and what experiences do they offer artists?
EM: Two of the residencies, La Foce and Civitella Ranieri, are based in Umbria, a region defined by its rural, tranquil surroundings and deep cultural history. The landscape of rolling hills, olive groves, and vineyards, combined with its medieval, Etruscan, and Renaissance heritage, invites a contemporary dialogue with history and nature.
Animal Farm in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, offers a community-driven environment rooted in collaboration and experimentation. Artists engage directly with local practitioners, materials and cultural narratives. Influenced by permaculture principles, the residency integrates agricultural and artistic practices, creating a holistic ecosystem where creativity, sustainability and community are primary.
PoD: Some artists have taken bold steps outside their usual mediums during these residencies. Why is risk-taking important at this stage in an artist’s career?
EM: Residencies provide the rare gift of time and space, conditions that allow artists to take risks without fear of failure. Stepping outside one’s established medium can open up unexpected pathways. For mid-career and emerging artists, this kind of experimentation is often where the most profound developments occur. The Foundation exists to hold space for that kind of growth, encouraging artists to push boundaries in ways that might not be possible within the constraints of commercial or institutional frameworks.
PoD: From your perspective, what barriers still remain, particularly for women and for artists outside the commercial gallery circuit? How does Tyburn attempt to dismantle them?
EM: Access, visibility and sustainability remain key challenges. Many artists face structural inequities that limit their opportunities for exposure or support. Through residencies and partnerships, we try to create alternative entry points: spaces that prioritise process over product and collaboration over competition.
In doing this we are committed to building transnational networks that amplify artists’ voices and expand participation beyond traditional centres of power.
PoD: Tyburn Foundation speaks of “slow-paced engagement” rather than a commercial context. What does “slow” mean in practice, and how do you maintain long-term support for artists?
EM: It takes time to build trust, to engage meaningfully in creative exchange, and to understand the nuances of an artist’s evolving practice. Our residencies last between six and twelve weeks, allowing artists to immerse themselves in a new environment and form lasting relationships. At Tyburn, our commitment is long-term, not a transaction but an ongoing conversation between artist, place and community.
PoD: If Tyburn Foundation could be known for doing one thing differently from every other residency programme, what would that be?
EM: We work internationally across Africa and Europe, aiming to bridge geographies and offer visibility and validation outside traditional Western-centric circuits while still engaging critically within them.
This approach allows us to highlight the multiplicity of creative voices shaping the contemporary moment and to engage in the refarming of how artistic excellence is understood.
PoD: For collectors and institutions encountering Tyburn artists early in their careers, what would you like them to understand about supporting artists at the residency stage?
EM: Supporting artists at an early stage is an exciting engagement and investment with future potential. It is about recognizing that artistic growth often happens in moments of reflection, research and experimentation. Collectors and institutions who engage with artists at the start of their careers are able to form meaningful and enduring relationships with the artists and their practices.
PoD: In your view, what’s the most meaningful way patrons or institutions can partner with Tyburn Foundation to amplify its impact?
EM: There are so many ways, for instance, funding residencies, supporting individual artists and exhibitions and providing resources for production and travel. We hope to foster lasting frameworks of support rather than one-off interventions. Collaboration across borders, disciplines and institutions is at the heart of everything we do.
PoD: Finally, on a personal note: what has been the most rewarding moment so far since launching Tyburn Foundation?
EM: It has been wonderful to see artists form connections across cultures and disciplines and find new directions in their practices through the Foundation’s programmes. We created Tyburn to champion artists from Africa within an increasingly challenging global art ecosystem and it is hugely rewarding to witness our programmes bearing fruit.
Final Details
The decision of Emma Mennell to present the inaugural exhibition of Tyburn Foundation during Art Basel Paris week at PIASA, surrounded by some of the world’s most powerful auction houses and galleries at the height of the market’s commercial energy, was a statement. In its first year of operation, the team of Tyburn Foundation demonstrated an institutional confidence and clarity of vision uncommon even among long-established foundations.
Through its partnerships with Civitella Ranieri in Italy, which has hosted over a thousand fellows including El Anatsui, William Kentridge and Zanele Muholi, and with Animal Farm Artist Residency in Zimbabwe, the Foundation establishes transcontinental dialogue. This exchange is grounded in reciprocity rather than extraction, setting out a model for how creative ecosystems can thrive through shared knowledge and mutual support.
As traditional gallery models face unprecedented challenges and the market continues its shift toward democratization, initiatives like Tyburn, placing artistic development above commercial frameworks, have never felt more vital.
The inaugural exhibition of Tyburn Foundation may have been titled Quiet Grounds, but its message resonated loudly: that meaningful change requires patience, commitment and structures designed for the long term. By providing sustained, non-commercial support through residencies that connect African artists with international artistic communities and historical sites, Tyburn Foundation is shaping a blueprint for a more equitable future for artistic development.
Until next time,
Politics of Details
Love the take on redefining what it means to champion artists today! Long-term support and cross-cultural exchange should define support beyond just art, across all mediums.
I just love the color. How fantastic!