London – Before it opened on The Mall, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) was located at 17–18 Dover Street. Some 46 years after the move, the current resident, avant-garde department store Dover Street Market, has invited the ICA back into its old home for an eight-week, six-floor takeover.
While Dover Street Market is known for its unique collaborations and exhibitions in-store, this is the first time it has allowed another organisation to take over all six levels. The ICA Off-site project features installations of imagery from the ICA archives embedded into the merchandising display around the store.
‘Creative synergy has always been a very important part of the fundamental idea behind Dover Street Market,’ says Adrian Joffe, Dover Street Market’s president. ‘The fact that the ICA occupied the building for 18 years is a wonderful accident of history. In fact, on a supra-conscious level, one could venture to say that it may not have been such an accident after all, as if we were somehow pulled into the building by such a creative past.’
For more on brands space-sharing, read our Symbiotic Branding macrotrend.