The Thousands

Five years of groundbreaking exhibitions, engaging public programs and celebrations of avant-garde cinema? More like five years of awesome gift shopping! We’ve come to expect a lot from GoMA’s little pockets of pop-up heaven and thank the Christmas stars that their latest temporary retailer does not disappoint.

I broke the rules a little here and visited the gift shop before I viewed the Matisse show – a very telling statement of what my life has become post university. In true GoMA style, the interplay between art and the merch is pretty great. The shop itself has installations (big tick for the use of cloches, Visual Merchandiser). There is a definite DIY-theme with mini easels, conte sticks, sketchbooks and roller pens that clip to your Moleskine, taking pride of place.

Take a peek back into the neighbouring Drawing Room and get inspired. There are the usual themed magnets and erasers and then there are things we’ve never seen before, like body milk from the Mediterranean (a little left of field, but damn those bottles look good under cloches).

My pick? PostCardens. I love these flat packs of greenery all the way to provincial France and back.