Christie Lam
©2024 Mag-Ex
Strategy
Research isn’t done in a vacuum; and is an important compass for strategy. I collaborate with people and organisations to plan for change, whether that is to improve and iterate on what has been done, or a move to a new location or the launch of a new program. Strategy work is done in close partnership with the client so it feels co-created, and never imposed, and is supported by data and insights from a range of sources to root it in reality. My goal is to create accessible, impactful tools that live on beyond my engagement and allow people to mobilise change.
The National Gallery, London
I was part of a small team who helped the National Gallery London develop an actionable audience strategy that advances their vision of being the people’s gallery. We were embedded within their internal Data & Insights team, allowing us to build on existing resources and ensured our work enhanced existing audience segmentation.
The strategy is a key addition to their bicentenary celebrations, NG200, including a significant capital project and major new programmes that will reorient the Gallery for the future. Our work helped them bring together all their existing workstreams and define clear audience priorities and maximise their impact.
Working with major cultural organisations to enact change is what nourishes my practice, and so getting to partner with a client of such scale was a true highlight. I brought to bear my data skills and became the point person for quantitative outputs, smoothing the bridge between the internal team and our resources, and brought a level of robustness that proved that our most “out there” ideas were also the most necessary for the organisation to achieve their vision.
SoMad
SoMad is a femme and queer-led independent gallery and studio in Manhattan, NYC, founded to provide community and support for artists from historically marginalized backgrounds. We worked with SoMad to develop a flexible strategic framework to guide their growth in programs and infrastructure, as they consider future sites for a potential relocation, and start to expand the scale of their operations.
The framework has helped SoMad plan for its operations at a unique time of its operations - where its physical location may change - and allow it to continue to stay on track with its mission and understand its core revenue and expense drivers, while not tied to a specific building.
SoMad’s mission aligned with my own personal mission - to amplify and build for folks from marginalised identities and communities, through independent spaces that have the freedom and ambition to work experimentally.