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Origin Story exhibition
campaign
Helping artist Sonia Boué tell her origin story
Background
In July 2021, multi-form artist Sonia Boué debuted her online exhibition, Origin Story. Hosted on Sonia's website, Origin Story is an autobiographical collection of photocollages and text that document, perform and reflect on her key formative experiences. The pieces rework Sonia's life story in light of the late autism diagnosis that she received in 2016. The work combines primary sources from Sonia's family collection (such as tutu and curtain fabric), past photographs and costumes created by Ann Tutt.
The exhibition is one part of Sonia's Arts Council England funded R&D project Neurophototherapy, which, inspired by the work of Jo Spence, is exploring creative self re-interpretation through photocollage with the aim to create a self-recovery model for late-discovered neurodivergent women and marginalised genders. Sonia's goal with Origin Story was to raise awareness that diagnosis is often the beginning of a journey, and that the diagnosee will likely need ongoing emotional support from those around them as they readjust to life.
Several weeks after the exhibition's launch, Sonia approached me to see whether I could help her boost reach and engagement levels for this body of work. In particular she wanted to target those who might identify with her experience and stand to benefit from the research, e.g. diagnosed or undiagnosed neurodivergent women and marginalised genders who may not typically access online exhibitions. This was an exciting and original proposition with the potential to make a big positive difference and I was very happy to help!
Brief
"I'd like to increase the exposure, reach and inclusivity of my work by sharing Origin Story far and wide. In addition to my exhibition, I want to share my story across a variety of social media and press platforms (in channel-appropriate ways) so that people with various consumption habits and accessibility needs are included. I would particularly like to encourage
awareness and engagement amongst those who may benefit from the research, such as other neurodivergent women and marginalised genders. Can you help?"
Process
After an initial consultation with Sonia, we decided to employ a number of methods to boost Origin Story's accessibility, reach and engagement levels. As Sonia had already published the exhibition in several different formats such as PDF, text only and audio to suit different accessibility needs, we determined that it was important for all promotion to emphasise the availability of these. We also ensured that all marketing material cross-promoted Sonia's forthcoming Origin Story publication, which was designed as a guide to help other late diagnosed autistics on their journey to self-recovery using Neurophotherapy's methodology and ideas. We agreed to run a 10-day Instagram takeover that presented a daily deep dive into the show alongside one of the exhibition pieces. Aside from the exhibition, Sonia had generated quite a bit of material for the project, including her late diagnosis experience or "neuro story". We felt this would be an interesting personal insight to share on Instagram, a platform which is particularly optimised for personal sharing, as part of the takeover. Other exhibition text was adapted to be social media-friendly and was posted alongside relevant images. The aim of the takeover was to direct people to the exhibition via Linktree, encourage people to engage with Sonia and the material, add an extra dimension to the work, and, for those who didn't click through to the exhibition, to still be exposed to a portion of the work. View the takeover here.
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"...To give you the background to Origin Story, I'd like to share my autism diagnosis story, which explains how I discovered that I am autistic in 2016, and what this meant for me..."
"...For decades, I had lived my life just 'getting along'. From the outside, things looked OK but on the inside I felt chaotic, useless, lost, and I struggled to cope with the basics of day-to-day living..."
"I left the centre in a haze of euphoria, hugging my new self-knowledge. I felt as elated as when I gave birth, and it was a birth of sorts as I was to find out over the coming months."
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Sonia's Instagram page during the takeover
Another tactic I used to boost the reach of this exhibition was to write and circulate a press release. This resulted in the show being featured in Arts Council England's Creative Lowdown, which was sent to their email subscribers and posted as a blog on their website. The show also received a mention in Modern Art Oxford's MAO Recommends newsletter and got numerous social media shout-outs from organisations including OVADA, Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, Modern Art Oxford and Fusion Arts.
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I also made use of Sonia's pre-existing mailing list, sending a newsletter to her subscribers informing them of the exhibition and Instagram takeover.
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To boost Sonia's newsletter subscriber count for future communications, I embedded a Mailchimp sign up form in the footer of her website and as a homepage popup screen.
I took advantage of Sonia's impressive network of social media contacts, fellow artists and organisations, sending relevant individuals an invitation to view the exhibition. Using the clean design style of Origin Story as a base, I designed several eye catching tiles for social media that promoted the exhibition, the takeover and Sonia's mailing list. The dimensions of these tiles were adapted so that they could be used for tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram stories.
Promotions were a combination of organic and paid-for posts specifically targeting women aged 18-65. As content that was being shared was highly personal, Sonia and I worked collaboratively to perfect her desired tone of voice and ensure that all copy was accurately worded. We ensured that followers were aware of the distinction between my copy and Sonia's text pieces, and much of this project was about making social media-minded tweaks to pre-existing text, allowing Sonia's story to speak for itself. A range of hashtags such as #AutismAcceptance, #PerformancePhotography #Neurodivergent and #PhotoCollage were incorporated into each post to improve the discoverability of the content for non-followers of Sonia. Image descriptions were also included at the bottom of every post for those with visual impairments.
Results
The combination of marketing tactics resulted in an impressive level of reach and engagement. Due on the number of responses and messages that Sonia received over the course of the takeover from people who resonated with her work, we decided to add an extra day to the takeover. This post combined a video compilation of the exhibition pieces with a caption that thanked everyone for coming along on the journey and for getting in touch. It was clear that through this campaign, Origin Story had been able to reach and connect with a much wider audience. Many new people, both neurodivergent and neurotypical were introduced to Sonia's work and made aware of her upcoming Neurophototherapy guide.
"Thank you for being part of this journey over the past nine days...Using text and photos as a means to connect my current self-identity with the person I have always been is proving to be a highly important and empowering part of my self-recovery process following autism diagnosis. It has been truly wonderful to read your comments and find that this work holds resonance and relevance for many of you as well..."
A selection of the brilliant feedback that Sonia received during the Instagram takeover
Campaign statistics:
Instagram stats for 31 August - 13 September (the week of and week prior to the takeover) compared to the previous period (17 - 28 August):
Linktree (stats obtained on 13 September, 1 day post-takeover):
Sonia Boué's website stats for 30 August - 12 September (compared to the previous period; 16 - 29 August):
