Executive Summary

Alight gives users a new perspective on artworks around London that reflect on “the sacred”. With it, you can hear insights from artists, historians, spiritual leaders, with their ideas about what each piece is communicating. The app takes you across locations in central London, including the National Gallery, Westminster Cathedral and Parliament Square.

Alight currently includes two collections of works to explore, one at the National Gallery, and one coinciding with the Stations of the Cross exhibit, an art trail around central London. Each collection can be downloaded when needed, with the possibility of more collections to be added in future.

Challenges

Ben Quash of King’s College London, was keen for the app to help people reflect on a range of artwork from different periods, styles and subjects. It was important for the app to achieve a balance between giving academic reference for each piece, and a reflective tone that allowed each user to have their own response. So, we created prototypes that were tested with curators, students and members of the public, before iterating towards the final content and interactions.

How Calvium Helped

The ambition of Alight was to be extendible beyond the initial collection, aiming to make collaboration and inclusion of other artworks and perspectives available in future. Calvium developed a content system that allowed a second collection to be added very soon after the initial launch, for an Easter exhibition.

Calvium was also on hand to offer marketing advice and support for the Alight app. Our experienced marketeers worked with the Stations of The Cross exhibition team to create social media material to help aid app downloads during the exhibition.

Results

The update system used in Alight has already been utilised to produce an AppTrail™ with Coexist House’s exhibit, Stations of the Cross; and other collaborations are a possibility. In creating this framework, we’ve devised a proven solution for other spiritual art projects, and opened the door for collaboration for King’s College London in future.

The Alight app was a fantastic addition to the Stations of the Cross art exhibition and offers the opportunity to supplement other art collections and events.