TALA × Here Comes the Sun — Norwich
In June 2024 I hosted and curated my debut solo art exhibition — Here Comes the Sun — at Fairhurst Gallery in Norwich, under my interdisciplinary art practice Samu Studio. The show ran for ten days from the summer solstice. As part of the build, I partnered with TALA — the London-based B Corp lighting house — to bring their lamps into the gallery as the lighting layer of the space.
The work
Lighting carried a disproportionate amount of the work in Here Comes the Sun. The concept was to turn the gallery into a curated living space rather than a traditional white-cube exhibition — biophilic, feng shui-informed, multi-sensory — and a living space lives or dies on light. TALA had been on my radar for years as a brand making considered, energy-efficient LED design with a real point of view. They're B Corp certified, London-based, and the kind of brand whose product you reach for because you actually want it in your home.
I reached out, pitched the partnership, and they went for it. They sent a curated selection of lamps for the show.
Because the exhibition opened on the summer solstice, the gallery filled with daylight for most of the day. I added a linen curtain across the main window — natural material, biophilic in its own right — to diffuse the light coming through into something softer and continuous. The TALA lamps then did the work of carrying the space into the evening. When we hosted our evening events — paper collage workshops with wine, Talk Club sessions, informal pizza-and-music gatherings — we peppered the lamps across the room. Each one held its small patch of space without fighting the others. The room shifted from a daylit gallery into a lamplit living room. Visitors didn't notice the change happening; they just felt it.
That was the point. Here Comes the Sun started as a show meant to exhibit my artwork — three biofabricated mycelium sculptures I'd grown in collaboration with Magical Mushroom Company. But what became interesting over the ten days was that the focal point shifted. The exhibition stopped being about the individual works on display and became about the feeling of the space itself — the spatial design, the materials, the partner brands that made it what it was. The artwork didn't disappear; it became part of a larger composition. The TALA lamps were a meaningful part of that composition.
For TALA, the show was an opportunity for visitors to engage with the product alongside the art — to sit underneath the lamps, work by them at the collage table, drink coffee in their light. That kind of in-context exposure is harder to manufacture than it sounds.
Credits
Concept, curation & spatial design Sam Harrons / Samu Studio
Brand partner TALA
About the photographer
Sam Harrons is an interdisciplinary creative based between Norfolk and London, working internationally across photography, filmmaking, art direction, and brand-building since 2012. Selected clients include TALA, TAKT, The Hoxton, Inhabit, 25hours, 1 Hotel, Naturalmat, Aesop, Lavenham, Bellroy, Plumo, Fujifilm UK, ARMEDANGELS, and 3daysofdesign. He founded Compendia, a design-led editorial platform and content studio, and runs his interdisciplinary art practice as Samu Studio.
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Yes. Lighting houses, furniture brands, interior labels, and considered-home brands are a regular area of work — particularly partnerships with a curatorial or spatial layer rather than a straightforward product shoot. Past partners include TALA, TAKT, Ligne Roset, and Haeckels.
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Sam Harrons is an interdisciplinary creative based between Norfolk and London, working internationally on partnerships that combine spatial curation, photography, art direction, and brand storytelling. Recent work spans lighting and furniture pop-ups, design festival coverage, hotel campaigns, and editorial residencies — for partners including TALA, TAKT, The Hoxton, Fujifilm UK, and 3daysofdesign.
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Yes. Here Comes the Sun is a working example — a debut art exhibition that became a curated environment where TALA's lamps were used in real time across daylit gallery hours and evening events. The format works for any lighting, interior, or atmosphere-led brand wanting to be experienced in a lived-in context rather than a product still.
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Based between Norfolk and London, working internationally. Most commissions are across the UK and Europe — Happy to discuss work anywhere worth getting on a plane for.
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Head to the contact page and fill in the form with the details of your project. The first conversation is free and no commitment.