Despacito Art School – Open School East

Despacito Art School (2017) began as a project-based programme for children aged 5-12+ from Cliftonville West, Margate. Today, Despacito Art School operate as a children and young people’s art collective. Despacito is founded on the belief that every child has the right to access art and education, and the emotional, social and intellectual benefits that it brings.

14 different languages have been part of Despacito Art School’s voice
46% of Despacito members have been attending for over 6 years
80% have attended school holiday sessions for over 2 years
1/3 have gone on to undertake further training or creative opportunities supported by OSE – including feature films, animation and community art projects

The programme provides regular opportunities for the collective to take part in hands-on art making and showcase their work in public presentations to their families, the local arts community and the broader public. Spaces are free but limited and priority is given to children who face barriers to accessing other creative opportunities.

We always provide a warm space, free breakfast and lunch as well as a safe environment for children and families from a diversity of backgrounds and lived experiences to come together and express themselves. We also work with local charities and organisations to signpost vital services, including Citizen’s Advice Bureau, Roma Drom, local food banks, Oasis Domestic Abuse Charity, Kent Family Hub and more.

Despacito Art School have shared their work with local partners Turner Contemporary and Roland Ross gallery, as well as with The BBC and as part of Shenece Oretha’s Iniva x European Cultural Foundation Drift Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Despacito artists have also gone on to study art at GCSE, as well as continued working with OSE on community projects as part of our Civic Programme, including in collaboration with architects StateStudio. Every two years, OSE’s in-house Graphic Designer and Artistic Director work with the collective to co-design and develop the theme, approach and visual identity of the next two-year programme cycle.

Through a varied programme, Despacito Art School invites internationally recognised artists and OSE alumni to lead workshops across music, painting, fashion, performance, film, sculpture and more and share their approaches to produce engaged and experimental artworks, exhibitions and events.

Past guest artist projects include When the World Looks Back at You with Tai Shani, in which participants unpacked experiences and perspectives on the anthropocene, counter culture and science fiction, biomimicry and fluidity; The Sound I Sea with Shenece Oretha, in which participants created a new sound in response to Margate’s seasonality and the sea; and with Samara Scott/SOSSKYN, in which participants experimented with latex printing, liquidity, superimpositions and DIY garment making that ‘hijacked’ locally found materials. This project, as well as FIDO (a film developed by OSE Associates Emelia Kerr Beale, Lucia Coppola and Middleton Maddocks) featured in 2024’s Summer Exhibition at OSE’s base in Hawley Square.

Despacito Art School developing their costumes with OSE Associate artists. Photo: Open School East, 2026

Despacito Art School runs in tandem with the theme of each two-year programme cycle, and is supported by OSE Associates as well as Alumni via our Springboard Programme, which sees Despacito Art School engage in projects that span generations, thought systems, cultures, and lived experiences.

In addition to working with children through Despacito, we are using our new Civic Programme to develop more embedded ways to foreground community in all that we do and provide training opportunities for older Despacito members to continue their work with us. We recognise that schools can be challenging spaces to learn for some children and that the arts, which are intrinsic to health and wellbeing, are an increasingly rare provision at many schools. We work with a variety of partners in our local community to source and share resources, knowledge and skills to offer alternative provision. They have included Garden Gate Project, Roma in the Lead, Drapers Mills Primary Academy, Margate Carnival, Arts Education Exchange and Margate Radio.

As part of our 2024-2026 two-year cycle Home is where the garden is, Despacito Art School worked on projects that consider access to green and outdoor space, environmental justice and the eco-politics of our local area.

We are working towards future projects that consider how we broadcast and share information, with a focus on visual and media literacy through hyper-local print, radio and moving image projects. This builds upon and shares work Despacito Art School have developed with guest artists as part of Home is where the garden is.